Casus Belli
by Lil Lupin
Summary: They would have called it a just war. In which Sirius is reckless, James miscalculates and Remus pays the price. A story covering the events of the infamous "Willow Incident" and Snape's Worst Memory, in that order. Canon-compliant.
1. Prologue: The Beginning

**Disclaimer: **All rights to characters, places, objects and concepts you recognise belong to J.K. Rowling.

**A/N: **I never intended to write this. I actually started writing a Jily fic some time ago, which began in the Marauders' seventh year. I struggled with characterisation, particularly the relationship between Lily and James because I didn't know what had happened between the events of Snape's Worst Memory and the start of their seventh year. I decided, then, that I would start the story straight after those events. That still didn't work, because I simply could not make head nor tail of the fact the infamous 'prank' involving Snape and the Whomping Willow came before a scene in which James and Sirius start an apparently unprovoked attack on Snape.

I know many people are divided on the issue and that many have chosen to see James and Sirius as callous bullies. This doesn't really hold as an explanation for me. They might have been immature, arrogant and occasionally cruel, but they weren't stupid. They would have had to be spectacularly thick – and completely indifferent to how Remus would feel – in order to do what they did to Snape post-the DADA OWL when they knew Snape could blab Remus's secret at any moment. It _is_, nonetheless,a difficult thing to fathom, and so this story gives one explanation for how it could have happened. It also tries to go some way to giving a more rounded view of why Lily was so affected by Snape's one-time use of the word 'mudblood' and where that terrific outburst Lily had against James came from.

I've tried very hard to face certain truths head-on. James and Sirius were arrogant, and they hexed people who annoyed them. Sirius showed no remorse, even eighteen years later, for sending Snape to meet a werewolf. That for me means that Sirius was not careless; his actions were entirely wilful. And Snape was not a powerless victim; he "hexed James at every opportunity he got" and was always attempting to get the Marauders into trouble.

This fic will, therefore, not be for everyone. It is not for you if you want a one-sided portrayal of Snape as the victim; nor is it for anyone who wants to excuse Sirius's actions on the grounds he just 'didn't think'. I do, however, have an innate pro-Marauder tendency, and perhaps you might like to think about the sort of story I'll write in light of that. You have been warned!

For any readers of Ask No Questions; it IS going to be finished. This just took over for a bit.

* * *

**Prologue: The beginning**

The day that Albus Dumbledore had turned up on the Lupins' doorstep – 28th February 1971, to be precise – was singularly the most exhilarating of Remus's young life to date. And, really, it was where all this had started.

The Lupins had not been expecting the Hogwarts Headmaster to visit. On the contrary: Lyall and Hope Lupin had already explained in gentle terms to their ten year-old that, because of his condition, he would not be allowed to attend Hogwarts – instead, Lyall would teach him at home. It had been a distressing conversation for both Lyall and Hope, who had entertained high hopes for their son up until six years before, but Remus had said very little during their talk. It was true that he was generally a quiet and well-mannered boy, and outbursts were not in his nature. But Lyall and Hope had come to the conclusion that Remus's apparent indifference was because he simply didn't know what he was missing out on. This was not an unreasonable assumption. Over the years, they had been careful not to show Remus too many photographs of Hogwarts; Lyall had not even mentioned the House system. It had seemed pointless – in fact, even cruel – to rub in Remus's face what he could never have.

Ten days after the conversation about Hogwarts, however, Hope Lupin was starting to worry. Remus had gone from quiet to silent. He was spending far too much time in his bedroom. He emerged only for mealtimes. He had no friends she could send him to see; and it was freezing cold, so she could not persuade him even to take his book outside. She had tried to talk to him about it, and she had been met with Remus's wan smile and an assurance that he was fine. Even Lyall, with his vocal assurances that their son just needed time, could not hide the worry and uncertainty in his eyes.

As Hope Lupin drummed her fingers on the checked kitchen tablecloth, watching the rain slash against the window, she wished, not for the first time, that her son had just been left alone on that full moon six years before.

Not for her sake – as frightened as she had been the first time her little boy had transformed into a howling creature that scratched and threw itself at the door, her son was the clever and loving boy he always had been, and she could never feel differently about him. No, what she hated about the lycanthropic curse that Remus was inflicted with was the way it was systematically and thoroughly destroying every aspect of Remus's young life.

"Hope, love, have you seen my book on the creation of Boggarts?"

Lyall Lupin asked the question as he entered the kitchen, and Hope turned her head to look at her husband. He had lost a lot of weight in the last few years – the constant stress of moving every few months and finding ever more inventive ways to contain an animal that did not want to be contained took its toll on him even more than it did on Hope. He alone understood the real implications of Remus's condition: Hope, as a Muggle, only knew second-hand what the wizarding community's attitude towards werewolves was.

"Mrs Whippet was asking questions about Remus this morning at church," she said, instead of answering her husband's question. "Said it was odd for a boy not to have any friends. And she'd noticed him looking unwell twice in the last two months."

"We'll have to move again," said Lyall, his green eyes – so much like Remus's – taking on that haunted look they often did these days.

"Do we _have _to? She's not a witch…she couldn't possibly guess the truth, could she?" Hope didn't even know why she was arguing. It was not as though she _liked _it in Trebanog, where it seemed to rain constantly and the only shop in the Welsh village was primarily a meeting-place of the local gossips.

Lyall sighed. "Hope, we've been through this before. If we're really serious about protecting Remus – about ensuring no one in the wizarding world ever found out – _no one _can be allowed to even _suspect_. It just takes one – "

"-Muggle relative to let slip to a wizard, I know." Hope sounded more bitter than she intended to. They had taken it to extreme lengths – they'd been dodging their own families for years – but she loved her husband and her son and she wouldn't have traded it for anything. "Sorry," she apologised. "I just…I'm worried about Remus," she blurted out. "I don't want him to live like this forever – having to move from place to place; how is he _ever _going to have a life if he doesn't even know how to interact with people?"

"Er…Mum?"

Hope jumped, her gaze snapping to the door. There was no way of telling how long Remus had been standing there – he somehow possessed the ability to sneak up on people without them ever hearing him.

(It would be one of the things that would delight and be put to good use by his future Gryffindor dorm mates.)

He looked at her now, his green eyes wide and anxious, worrying his lip between his teeth.

"What is it, sweetheart?" Hope asked. She should have been relieved he'd left his room, but now she had a whole new concern: whether he had overheard her fears for the rest of his life. It was not, she thought, something one really wanted their ten year-old to be contemplating.

"I'm…I'm just hungry. Could I have a crumpet, maybe?"

"Sounds like a good idea to me," said Lyall, as Hope stood up and went to get the crumpets from the bread bin. "We could play Gobstones if you like, son?"

Remus worried his lip some more. Then, with a little nod, he'd disappeared up the stairs to fetch the Gobstones set. Relieved at this willingness to spend time with the family, Hope could not even bring herself to complain that she would have to wash the foul-smelling liquid from their clothes later. She shared a small smile with her husband before she opened the packet of crumpets and began to arrange them on a grill pan.

"Why don't you get the fire started?" she suggested. "The living room's so cold at the moment."

"Good idea."

But as Lyall was about to leave the kitchen, a loud and determined knock sounded at the door.

Hope and Lyall shared a look. Since moving to Trebanog, they had made no real effort to make friends, keeping themselves to themselves, and they did not live in one of the terraced houses, but a little way out of the village. It was not likely, therefore, to be someone asking to borrow butter.

Another knock.

"You stay here," said Lyall, and Hope saw his hand move to his pocket, where he kept his wand. He darted out of the room. Hope clicked her tongue, removed her apron and followed him. But when she got into the hall, she found her husband with his back flat against the front door, his eyes wide and his face pale. Hope stopped dead.

"What, Lyall? What is it?"

"_Shhh_," he hissed. "He'll hear you!"

"_Who?"_

"Albus Dumbledore!" It came out almost as a moan.

"_Who?"_

"The Headmaster of Hogwarts." It wasn't Lyall who had spoken, but Remus, who was standing midway down the stairs, holding the set of Gobstones, his eyes fixed on the door. Lyall blinked.

"How do you – "

Another knock – louder this time. And an amused voice, full of warmth, as Hope fought to keep up with what was going on.

"I must say, Lyall, I've had better welcomes."

It seemed to spur Lyall back into action. "He must have found out! He's here to confirm it….Hope, get the chair from the kitchen; we'll block the door."

"I think it will take more than a kitchen chair to keep Albus Dumbledore out," said Remus quietly as Hope returned with the chair.

"Remus, in the living room!" Lyall ordered, his usually calm demeanour obviously rattled. He took the chair from Hope as Remus jumped down the last few stairs and ran past Hope, back towards the kitchen and into the living room. Jamming the chair under the door handle, Lyall stepped back, obviously satisfied. "That ought to do it."

"I thought you said that wizards can – "

"You're right!" Lyall was beside himself. "I'll have to put reinforcements on the door. Stand back." Hope watched apprehensively as he waved his wand, a little thrill going down her spine, still fascinated and impressed by Lyall's abilities with what was, by all appearances, a wooden stick.

She just hoped whatever he was about to do with the door would work. They'd tried _so hard _to keep Remus hidden.

But just as he opened his mouth, Lyall stopped up short and whipped around to look at her. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Hope asked, but even as she said it, she heard what he meant: the sound of voices from the living room.

Hearts hammering, Lyall and Hope Lupin took one another by the hand and edged down the hallway and into their sitting room.

The fire was burning brightly – despite the fact Lyall had never got around to lighting it – and it spread warmth into the room, making Hope shiver as her cold fingers adjusted to this new heat. But that was not what caught her attention.

Sitting before the fire, opposite Remus with the Gobstones board between them, sat the most eccentric person Hope had ever laid eyes on. He appeared old – very old, with a long white beard that reached past his knees as he leaned over to consider his move. Half-moon spectacles sat on the edge of his long, crooked nose. And he was dressed entirely in purple – from the tall, pointed hat on his head, down to the shoes that peeked out of the edge of his robes. Remus looked completely mesmerised.

Lyall made a strangled noise in his throat. This appeared to capture the man's attention and he looked round.

"Mr and Mrs Lupin!" he said cheerfully. "I hope you don't mind: I saw the crumpets in the kitchen, and I simply couldn't resist." He raised a plate, on which were two buttered crumpets, perfectly grilled. Remus was grinning behind him, chewing through his own plate of crumpets. Hope blinked. She might have pointed out that she hadn't even put the grill on – but she had never seen anyone who looked more like a wizard, and she could guess perfectly well how he'd grilled the crumpets so quickly.

"Dumbledore!" Lyall had finally found his voice, though his tone trod a fine line between fright and anger. "I must ask you to leave!"

"Now, really, Lyall, I would have expected more from a former Prefect." Albus Dumbledore's eyes twinkled and, scared as she might have been, Hope could not help trusting this man.

"How did you get in?" Lyall demanded.

"I generally think if you want to keep intruders out, it's sensible to lock _all _the doors," said Dumbledore, directing a wink at Remus, who giggled.

"What are you doing here, Dumbledore?" Lyall was clearly not in the mood to be polite. "Barging in here…eating our food and playing with our son…"

"Ah yes, Remus." Dumbledore smiled. "It was Remus I was here to discuss, actually."

Lyall let out another strangled noise, as he and Hope shared a fearful look.

"What-what about Remus?" Hope was the first to find her voice.

"Mrs Lupin, I know perfectly well of Remus's condition," said Dumbledore calmly. As Hope let out a squeak, Remus's eyes widened dramatically. "No need to look so frightened, dear boy," said Dumbledore. "Lycanthropy's nothing to be ashamed of." Remus, who had looked ready to bolt from the room, blinked and his whole body relaxed: Hope could not help warming to this wizard who, whilst just announcing he knew all about her son's lycanthropy, had managed to put Remus totally at ease.

"How dare you," Lyall snarled, and Hope put a warning hand on his arm. Something told her that the Hogwarts Headmaster meant no harm. But Lyall shook her off. "How? How do you know?"

"I have my sources," said Dumbledore calmly. "Fenrir Greyback has not been shy about boasting of his actions amongst his pack."

Lyall shot a quick look at Remus, who had sat up very straight. "You…you know who bit me?" he demanded, his young voice indignant.

Dumbledore seemed to realise his mistake immediately. "Perhaps your parents did not know, Remus," he said. "But Fenrir Greyback claims the credit for biting you, yes."

Hope Lupin knew perfectly well the name of her son's attacker. Lyall still muttered it in his dreams. She knew, later, she and her husband would have to agree on what they were going to tell their son about it.

"Who else knows?" Lyall demanded. Dumbledore sighed.

"Won't you sit down, both of you?" He waved his wand and the sofa drew closer to the fire. Hesitantly, Hope took a seat. Lyall looked like he was going to remain standing. She pulled him down next to her with a jerk of her hand: it wasn't wise to insult someone who knew about Remus. "Tea?" Before Hope could answer, there was a steaming teacup in her hand.

"Now," said Dumbledore. "I have no reason to think that anyone outside of Greyback's pack knows of Remus's condition. But the state of general knowledge is not what I am here to discuss."

"It…it isn't?" Hope asked.

"Indeed," Dumbledore said. "I am here to discuss Remus's education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Silence. Then Hope broke in.

"It's all right," she said quickly, "Mr Dumbledore. We've already explained to Remus that he won't be going to Hogwarts. This really isn't necessary."

She hated the way Remus's face closed up immediately – loathed herself for it. But she knew Dumbledore's presence would only make it worse: Remus did not need it spelt out in excruciating detail why he could never attend school like a normal wizard.

"Mrs Lupin, I think you've misunderstood me," said Dumbledore. "I am here to offer Remus a place at Hogwarts."

Another beat of silence. It was Lyall's turn to break it.

"Dumbledore," he hissed. "You know what he is…you know he can't…it's just cruel getting his hopes up – "

"Perhaps I should explain," Dumbledore interrupted.

And so he did. He told the Lupins how he had arranged to have a tunnel constructed, leading to a comfortable house on the edge of Hogsmeade village, near to the school, where Remus could be taken once a month to complete his transformation. A Whomping Willow – a particularly violent tree, Hope was informed – would be planted over the entrance of the tunnel to dissuade the more curious students from finding it. Remus and the other students would be perfectly safe.

"Naturally, not everyone in the wizarding world is as well-disposed towards werewolves as perhaps they should be," said Dumbledore. "For that reason, I think it best for Remus's own welfare that his condition – nor the existence of the tunnel – not be broadcasted."

"He'll…he'll have to miss school, though," said Hope faintly. All three Lupins had been quiet throughout Dumbledore's explanation. "He's always ill for a few days."

"I'll manage!" said Remus. His face had shone with hope from the moment Dumbledore had started speaking. "I'll work extra hard to catch up!" Dumbledore smiled.

"Indeed. I've no doubt excuses can be made – perhaps an ill relative that requires visiting." He looked over his half-moon glasses. "Mr and Mrs Lupin, I hope you agree with me that Remus appears a talented and likeable child: he should be encouraged to lead as normal a life as possible."

"H-have you ever done this before, Dumbledore?" Lyall asked. It was the first time he had spoken in some time.

"No," Dumbledore admitted. "Consider it an experiment, if you will. But I have no doubt that if you impress the utmost importance of discretion on Remus, there is no reason why this should not work and Remus should not attend school like every other young wizard."

"Of _course _I'll be quiet – I won't tell _anyone – please _can I go, Mum and Dad?"

Remus Lupin was not in the habit of asking for very much; he had never been a demanding child. Lyall and Hope would have had to be very hard-hearted individuals to deny him on this occasion, and neither of them were.

"I suppose you can go," said Lyall uncertainly, sharing a quick look with his wife. "But you'll have to be very careful. You might have to lie to people. It's very important that _no one _finds out."

And that, indeed, was what all parties intended to happen.

* * *

It was perhaps unfortunate, in that case, that Remus happened to befriend two of the cleverest and most curious boys Hogwarts had ever seen. When he looked back on it later, he wondered how on earth he had managed to keep his secret from them for fifteen months.

But when Remus Lupin entered the second-year boys' dorm in Gryffindor Tower on 21st January 1973, precisely three days after the full moon that month, he could not have known that the secret the Headmaster and his parents had impressed upon him must be _kept secret_ had already been discovered.

He did realise straight away, however, just how terrible his friends were at behaving casually.

When he arrived in the dormitory, he found James Potter lying sideways on his bed, holding _Potions Today_ (as if James would be caught dead reading an academic journal). Sirius Black almost looked like he wasn't even trying to pretend: he had adopted the same pose as James, but he didn't have anything to do; he just looked like he was _waiting _for something. Peter Pettigrew had done the best job, as he did appear to be genuinely attempting some homework, but unfortunately his gaze kept darting at James and Sirius in a way that raised Remus's suspicions instantly.

"All right, what did you do?" Remus asked with a small smile. All three heads snapped round to look at him; James threw down _Potions Today_ and almost leaped off his bed.

"Remus, you're back!" He beamed, and Remus resisted the urge to take a step backwards at this unexplained enthusiasm. Then again, James was a very enthusiastic individual. It still stunned Remus that James Potter – popular, fun and relentlessly cheerful – actually wanted to be friends with him.

"Er…yeah," he said carefully. "Aunt's a bit better. Any particular reason you're so pleased to see me?"

"No reason." James sounded _far _too innocent for Remus's liking. And, somewhat to Remus's disconcertion, James leaned around him and pushed the door closed with one hand. Remus raised his eyebrows.

"Got a prank planned, have you?"

"Actually," said James, "there was something we wanted to talk to you about."

"Yeah?" Remus kept his face deliberately blank, but his heart gave an uncomfortable jump. He didn't know why he felt so nervous. They weren't going to talk to him about _that. _He'd been careful. Hadn't he? Dear God, it _was _his aunt he'd said was ill, wasn't it? "What's that, then?"

"Well, the thing is," Sirius started from his position on his bed. "We sort of noticed that you're away a lot."

Oh. Oh _dear. _They _were _going to talk to him about that. Remus had to force himself to hold his ground and not yank the door open and sprint all the way to the lake. _He'd been careful. _"Yeah. When I saw my aunt," he fervently hoped it _was _his aunt that was supposed to be ill, "the Healers were actually saying that they think there's something in our family's – "

"Oh, Lupin. We really are going to have to teach you to lie more convincingly."

James's smile was easy, but Remus's blood ran cold.

"What-what do you mean?" he asked, trying not to let his voice rise in panic. "My aunt – "

"Died last month," Peter cut in. "Remember?"

"I have more than one aunt," Remus defended. He was greeted with three disbelieving expressions, though he could have sworn Peter muttered, "Told you so." His heartbeat was now fluttering in his throat; he thought he might throw up. "It's true – "

"Look, Remus," James interrupted, his arm around Remus's shoulders conspiratorially. "_We know."_

"Know what?" Remus's voice came out slightly strangled.

"That you're a werewolf," said James briskly.

_A werewolf_.

_Werewolf._

The word hung in the air – a reminder of what he was; a reminder that this had all been too good to be true. It occurred to Remus that if James hadn't had his arm around him, his legs might have collapsed from underneath him. The room spun. He took a steadying breath.

"How dare you?" he asked. He'd intended to sound angry, but his voice came out sounding rather more frightened instead and he hated himself for not being a better actor. Dumbledore, for all his carefully laid plans, had never banked on his inability to lie to his friends properly.

James and Peter blinked back at him, clearly bemused at this ineffectual attempt at a denial, but Sirius suddenly sat up, his eyes narrowing.

"How dare _we?_" he said. "_You're _the one who's been lying to us, Lupin!"

His voice sounded so cold that all Remus could think was: _it's starting. _He opened his mouth to make another stab at a denial, but his throat was suddenly so tight he found he couldn't speak. He'd known all along this might happen – he'd even spoken to his parents about it, and they had been clear: if anyone found out, it would mean the end of his time at Hogwarts. No one would willingly sit in class with a werewolf.

"_Mother's _ill; aunt's ill; aunt's _died_; grandmother's died…Merlin, how thick do you think we are?"

It was too much. Letting out a low moan, Remus suddenly bolted towards the door, but James – always so ruddy _nimble_ – had thrown himself flat against it before he'd taken two steps.

"Oh, no you don't," he said. "We're not _that _annoyed about the lying. Though we will have to help you come up with some better stories; yours are crap."

Remus could only blink, his heart hammering so painfully he could make no sense of James's words. There was a rushing sound in his ears.

"You look like you need to sit down, mate," said James.

Merlin, did Remus need to sit down. He allowed James to guide him to his bed – mostly because he didn't think he could walk by himself. All he could think was: _they know. They know. _A year and a half of more happiness than Remus thought he'd ever be privileged to, and it was about to come to an abrupt end.

He was going to have to pack his bag – probably that very night – but just then, his body felt too heavy to stand, the weight of this revelation bearing down on him.

"H-how did you find out?" he asked faintly.

"Your grandmother's died four times," said Peter. He'd shifted his position so he was sitting on the end of his bed too, holding one of the banisters of his four-poster with one hand.

"That and you always looked sick just before your visits home – coincidentally always around the full moon." James was grinning like they were discussing a particularly brilliant prank. Remus stared at him.

"Don't you _mind?"_ he burst out.

It was James's turn to stare. "Why would we _mind?_ It's the coolest thing I've ever heard! Sharing my dormitory with a werewolf!"

The word made Remus's stomach clench painfully, but he was breathing very fast as he looked wildly between his three dorm mates. "_Cool?"_ he spluttered. "I'm going to have to leave! You won't…your parents won't want you sharing with a….with a…."

"Werewolf?" Sirius supplied. "We weren't going to tell our _parents_, mate – what a daft idea. Have you _met _my mother?"

Remus couldn't even manage a smile. He'd only met Sirius's mother once, at the end of the previous year on Platform 9 ¾. The first thing she had asked for was his surname and, upon hearing it, had looked at him like he was something nasty she'd found on the bottom of her shoe. Sirius had been quick to explain, red-faced and embarrassed, that his mother only talked to people from certain families.

"But don't _you _mind?" he asked again.

"Of course not!" James said. "We told you: we think it's brilliant. I don't know anyone who has a werewolf for a best friend!"

"There's a reason for that," said Remus weakly, but James was still grinning from ear to ear. Remus could only continue staring at him. For all his cleverness, didn't James _understand? _"I'm…I'm a monster," he said, and hated how his voice cracked. Suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to vomit, he lurched from the bed, but James pushed him back down.

"Last time I checked, monsters didn't let me copy their Charms homework."

"You don't understand," Remus moaned, covering his face with his hands. "I…you've never seen a werewolf transformed. I _am _a monster. Last summer my dad had to build a… a reinforced steel shed in the garden because I could break down the door of the cellar _whatever _spells he used. And do you know how we found that out?" Now that he'd started, it was as though he couldn't stop. "Because during the July full moon, I broke through the door and nearly killed my mother."

This was enough to wipe the smile abruptly from James's face, and Remus thought, then, that he'd blown it – that tomorrow morning he'd be on the Hogwarts Express back home. He couldn't look at any of his friends. He buried his face back into his hands, breathing hard.

It was Sirius who spoke. "Er…we won't be joining you at the full moon, then?"

"_What?"_ Remus's head jerked up to stare at his friend. "Are you _mad?"_

Sirius shrugged in that indifferent way only Sirius Black could manage. "Dunno. Seemed like a cool idea. Never seen a werewolf before."

As Remus gaped, James seemed to take up this idea with his classic enthusiasm. "There must be _some _way we can be with you!"

"No. _No!"_ Remus jumped up, staring in bewilderment at his friends. James and Sirius were grinning again; Peter alone looked taken aback at his reaction. _At least _one _person in this dormitory's sane_, Remus thought. He took another steadying breath. "Don't you _understand? _I'm…I'm not _myself _during the full moon. I'd kill you in a heartbeat. I…I…" Lost for words, he ripped open his shirt and displayed the long, red, still-healing gouges in his chest. Madam Pomfrey couldn't do much about them: they were cursed wounds, after all, though they would fade somewhat over time. Sirius's and James's faces fell faster than a bezoar in a potion.

"What…_what the hell is that?"_ James demanded, as Sirius grimaced and Peter covered his eyes.

"I don't have human prey. Dumbledore set up a house on the edge of Hogsmeade to keep me shut away," said Remus, breathing hard. "So I…I bite and scratch myself instead. I can't…I can't control it; it just happens."

"That…that looks like it _hurt_," said Peter faintly.

"It did," Remus snapped. "And I'd do it to all of you, given half the chance. I wouldn't be able to help myself." He pulled his shirt back across his chest again protectively. "_Now _maybe you understand why the entire wizarding world hates werewolves! _Why _I lied!"

James was still staring at the wounds, his face pale. Finally his gaze flickered up to meet Remus's, and Remus was sure that he was going to say that he couldn't be friends with him after all, that this wasn't something he wanted to deal with. He should have known better.

"We won't tell anyone," said James, and Remus had never seen him so serious. "_No one_. And we'll find a way to help you. There's gotto be something_._"

Remus's throat had gone very tight, so that he didn't have the strength to tell James, again, that there was no way to help him. But he managed to say: "Really. This isn't a joke. _No one _can know. I'll be expelled."

"The teachers know, though, right?" asked Peter. Remus nodded. James didn't appear to care too much about that.

"You're our friend, Remus," he said. "We're not going to tell anyone. Right, lads?" He looked over his shoulder to Sirius and Peter for confirmation, who both nodded.

"A pact!" Sirius suggested. "An Unbreakable Vow!"

"Brilliant!" said James, pulling out his wand. There was a brief pause, before: "Er…I don't actually know how to do one. Do you?"

Remus might have laughed if he hadn't felt so shaky.

"An ordinary vow, then," said Sirius. "I vow I will keep Remus's secret for as long as I live."

"Seconded," said James.

"I promise too," said Peter.

Remus was silent, his erratic heartbeat gradually slowing as he looked from Peter's wide eyes, to Sirius's unusually solemn expression, to the determination in James's gaze. He couldn't quite believe how easily they'd accepted the truth: how the three of them were still in the dormitory, looking at him no differently than they had when he'd left to go to the Hospital Wing four days ago.

The secret was safe, for now, and Remus would never stop being thankful for the way they'd accepted him.

He'd think later that he should have realised that it was too good to last. Though they were his friends, they were still teenage boys and everyone knew that teenagers had a tendency to act rather than think; go to war first, ask questions later. Particularly these boys, for whom recklessness was practically their middle name.

It should not have been surprising, really, that it spiralled so drastically out of control.

At least it took another three years to do so.

* * *

**A/N: **I love reading people's reviews and I can't tell you what a difference it makes in motivating me to update. So please take a few seconds to tell me what you think.


	2. Signs of Strife

**Disclaimer: **All rights to characters, places, objects and concepts you recognise belong to J.K. Rowling.

* * *

**Chapter One: Signs of Strife**

**17****th**** March 1976**

The sun refused to creep over the hill that morning. Instead the clouds hung ominously over the castle, making the rippling lake below appear a stormy grey. It was symptomatic of what had been a long and drawn-out winter. Even in the early hours of that mid-March morning, frost crystals were settled over the lawns, twinkling as three boys staggered up the path towards the castle, too exhilarated to be bothered by the fact they were absent from their House Tower out of hours.

"That was _brilliant!"_ A lanky boy reached the castle first, but he didn't go in, instead turning around to lean against the big oak door and grin at his two friends. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, but almost instantly they slipped again, slick with the dirt and sweat on his face. This didn't bother him much. He generally adjusted his glasses out of habit rather than because he needed to, a tic that had developed over the last two years, since his mother had put her foot down and insisted he visit an Opti-Wizard.

"_Excellent, _wasn't it? What did I tell you?" The taller of his two companions – a handsome boy who somehow managed to look elegant despite his dishevelled appearance – caught up with him, bending over to catch his breath. He straightened up as the other boy reached them. "All right, Wormtail?"

The short, plump boy flushed, evidently still pleased with the fact he had a nickname. "Fantastic!" he said. "Much better than last time!"

They all grimaced slightly at the thought of the last time – the first time – they had done this: ventured out at full moon. They had not been so exhilarated and pleased with themselves then. They had staggered straight up to the Gryffindor Tower without a pause, too shell-shocked to speak for almost a full hour.

The sound of footsteps echoing behind the oak door alerted them to someone's presence: the lanky boy sprang away from the steps and they ducked behind a large bush a second before a woman dressed in a matron's uniform emerged, carrying a small bag and walking with small, purposeful strides in the direction the boys had recently come from. They held their breath, watching her approach a huge tree which was angrily waving its branches, in spite of the lack of wind. She picked up a long stick from the ground and seemingly prodded the trunk. The tree stopped thrashing immediately: a second later, she had disappeared below it.

"_That's _why we had to run, Wormtail," said the lanky boy as they straightened up.

The shorter boy frowned. "All right for you, Prongs," he said. "_You're _on the Quidditch team! But me and Padfoot – "

"_Padfoot and I_," 'Prongs' corrected with a grin as their companion gave an indignant yelp.

"Don't drag _me _into your complaints about being unfit!" he said. "I'm in _much_ better shape than Prongs!"

"Yeah?" said Prongs with a sly grin. "Then why don't we – "

"_No,_ guys," said Wormtail, getting between the two taller boys. "If you have a race _now _you're bound to draw attention to us! I, for one, would like to get through this without getting detention…or a prison sentence!"

"He's right," Prongs conceded regretfully, as the handsome boy muttered something about 'wimpy Quidditch players'. Prongs threw an arm around his shoulders with a grin. "Don't worry, Padfoot, I'm sure we'll be able to race tomorrow…er, later today. And I'm going to _crush_ you."

'Padfoot' snorted, shrugging off his friend's arm. "As if, you skinny git. C'mon, let's get up to the Tower. I'm dying to get all this werewolf grime off me."

"Sure it's werewolf grime and not your own slobber, Padfoot?" Prongs said with a smirk as they opened the oak door to the castle. Padfoot scowled as Wormtail sniggered.

"Better a dog than some _deer_ that prances around like there's a stick up his backside," said Padfoot, grinning as Prongs drew himself up in indignation.

"I'm not a _deer!"_ he cried, so loudly that Wormtail and Padfoot, through their laughter, had to shush him. "I'm a _stag,"_ he continued in a whisper. "A regal, majestic, _noble – "_

"Ponce?" Padfoot suggested with another snigger.

But Prongs was no longer listening. As they were about to climb the stairs from the Entrance Hall, he had whipped around very fast, his wand out, his hazel eyes searching the empty space.

"What?" said Padfoot impatiently.

Prongs frowned, his gaze still scanning the hall. He'd been _sure_ he'd heard something… But there was nothing now. Only silence.

"Come _on, _Prongs," said Padfoot, as Wormtail looked on, eyes wide.

Prongs was about to turn away and continue up the stairs. But something stopped him. Since becoming an Animagus, his senses had got better, more refined, more alert. He was still learning to trust them. Instead of following his friends, he stepped back off the stairs and moved towards the cupboard standing in the Entrance Hall.

"_Prongs,"_ Padfoot hissed. "It's probably Mrs Bennet. She'll have run off to get Filch. Let's move."

Prongs ignored him, not especially concerned about a heavily pregnant cat. Wand still out, he crept towards the cupboard, only dimly aware that his friends were following him. He paused outside the cupboard and, releasing the catch with a deft hand, pulled the door open, wand pointing straight between the two black eyes that stared back at him.

"_Snivellus,"_ he said coolly. "I should have guessed."

"_That_ greasy git?" Padfoot was at Prongs's shoulder. "_Expelliarmus,"_ he said as the scrawny boy in the cupboard reached into his pocket. His beetle-like eyes were fixed on them, his features twisted with loathing in a way that emphasised his hook nose.

"Spying on us again, Snape?" Prongs said, not bothering to mask his contempt. "That'd make…what, the fourth time this month?"

"I'll get you for this!" he spat furiously. "I saw you go out…you've been gone _hours_ …"

"You've really been here _all night? _Merlin, you really are pathetic, aren't you?" Prongs's eyebrows were arched in disbelief. "Don't you have anything better to do?"

"He could've spent that time washing his hair," said Padfoot, nudging Wormtail, who had sidled up next to him. They both sniggered.

"I'll get you all expelled!" Snape squawked. "Don't think I don't know what you've been up to – "

"You couldn't begin to dream, Snivellus," said Prongs coolly, still pointing his wand at the boy.

"Then where's your friend Lupin? Wasn't it a full moon last night?" Snape's face twisted in a satisfied expression as Wormtail let out a squeak. Prongs remained very still, aware that Snape was watching him carefully for any signs of a reaction.

"Remus's mother's ill, you greasy idiot," he said. "If you're insinuating he's a…what, a werewolf? Listen to yourself, Snape – we'd have to be suicidal to go running round with a werewolf on full moon, wouldn't we?" He held Snape's gaze defiantly, daring the boy to challenge him.

"Well, I'm sure Dumbledore will be very interested to know you were out of bed all night," began Snape.

"He would be, I'm sure, if anyone was going to tell him. But, honestly, Snape, I've had enough detentions because of you. _Petrificus Totalus_." Prongs flicked his wand and suddenly the boy in front of them – Snape – was rigid as a board, his face permanently frozen into an expression of pure hatred. Prongs turned to his friends. "I think we'll leave him here, don't you?"

"Absolutely. Make sure you lock the door," said Padfoot viciously, eying the rigid boy in front of them.

"Obviously. And better yet…_Levicorpus."_ Prongs flicked his wand again and Snape was hanging upside down by one ankle, still stiff as a board. "Better hope someone finds you soon, Snivellus," he said cheerfully. "I've heard it's bad for you to hang upside down for too long."

If Snape could have spat nails, he undoubtedly would have done: his black eyes were so full of loathing that it would have made more cowardly boys flinch. All Prongs did was smirk and shut the cupboard door.

"_Colloportus,"_ he said. There was a satisfying click as the door locked.

"Prongs!" Wormtail burst out almost instantly. His voice held a distinct note of panic. "He kn – "

"Shut _up, _Wormtail," Prongs and Padfoot hissed together.

"Let's just get up to the dormitory without any more incidents, shall we?" said Prongs wearily. He pocketed his wand and, without looking back, took the stairs two at a time. Wormtail and Padfoot – whatever Padfoot might insist – fought to keep up with him all the way up to Gryffindor Tower. Skinny though he might be, Prongs was Gryffindor's best Chaser and he took it seriously: early morning runs around the Lake were a standard practice for him. Padfoot, blessed with naturally good physique but a lazy demeanour, and Wormtail, born with an innate dislike of exercise, couldn't hope to beat him, especially when he set his mind on something.

Not even being out of breath would stem Wormtail's panic, however.

"He _knows!"_ the boy cried out as soon as they had got to their dormitory. He was wheezing but the urgency in his voice was clear enough.

"Do you want to wake the whole bloody Tower, Peter?" Padfoot snapped, his use of Wormtail's real name betraying his unease. He pushed the door with one hand and it closed with a click. The three of them stared at one another for a moment.

"He's going to blab," said Padfoot. This boy, too, had a different name, though 'Sirius Black' was hardly any more normal than his unusual nickname. As a general rule he appeared the most indifferent person in the school, having perfected an air of affected boredom, but at this moment even his voice was low with concern. He shoved his hands in his pockets, as if this would somehow rescue him from appearing nervous.

Prongs – whose real name was James Potter – was the only one who remained calm, his eyebrows lifting slightly at this unusual behaviour from his friends. "About our little excursion last night?" he said coolly. "Who cares? The teachers aren't just going to take his word for it." He pushed his glasses up his nose again.

"Not _that, _you idiot," said Sirius, as Peter said, "About _Remus! About us!"_

"Oh, come _on,"_ said James, one hand reaching up to mess up his hair at the back. He grimaced slightly as he felt how dirty his hair was. "Of course he doesn't _know. _He's taking a wild guess. He's got no way of proving it. And he definitely doesn't know about us."

Sirius's feeling about this confidence was written all over his face. "James, we've got to find a way of shutting him up."

James arched his eyebrow again. "We can't, Sirius," he said calmly.

"What do you mean?" Sirius's grey eyes were wide in disbelief. "We've got to! He'll tell the whole school!"

"_No, he won't,"_ said James firmly. He raked a hand through his hair, his mind wandering back to the greasy Slytherin locked up in the cupboard downstairs. "You don't understand him like I do. He won't risk embarrassing himself till he's confirmed it. And if we react to it – _we're confirming it_. All right? So let's just leave it." As if to signal the conversation was over, he began undressing, pulling his jumper over his head and unbuttoning his shirt. He paused in front of the mirror to examine the new red scratches on his shoulder – they were long and angry-looking. They made him look cool, he decided. But they _hurt._

"Remus isn't going to like this," Sirius warned.

"Obviously we're not telling him." James waved his hand with an air of dismissal. "No point getting him all worked up, is there? Here, Wormtail – think you can toss me some of Moony's healing cream?"

The shorter boy scrambled under Remus's bed for a few seconds before emerging with a round pot, which he threw to James. James caught it with one hand, unscrewed it and, shrugging off his shirt properly, started to apply it to his scratches.

"Much better than last time, wasn't it?" he said cheerfully. "We didn't get mauled _once_…was like he recognised us from before! Much calmer. I really think we'll be able to leave the Shack next time."

Sirius said nothing. Instead, he sat on the edge of his bed, head bowed as he watched James in silence. James seemed to sense he was still bothered by their previous topic of conversation. Closing up the pot of cream and throwing it onto Remus's neatly made bed, he turned to Sirius.

"Don't worry," he said. "Honestly. Snape can guess all he likes but he's not ever going to get it confirmed, is he?"

"He won't leave us alone," Sirius insisted. "What if he catches us sneaking out again?"

"Then we'll just have to take care of him," said James calmly. "Honestly, what _is_ it with you? It's _Snivellus._ He's not exactly Unmentionable mastermind, is he?"

It was enough to pull at the corners of Sirius's mouth; and this was sufficient to tell James he'd got round his friend. He grinned, pulling his towel down from the stand and throwing it over his shoulder.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist over _Snivellus_, Padfoot," he advised and, starting up a cheerful whistle, disappeared into their shared bathroom.

Sirius and Peter were left in silence. Sirius stared at the locked bathroom door, mildly irritated by James's parting shot. He wasn't _getting his knickers in a twist_; he was just sick of that greasy git watching their every move…

"You're still worried, aren't you?" Peter said eventually, perching on the edge of his bed.

"No," Sirius lied, because he'd never confide in Peter over his best friend James. He affected his favoured air of indifference. "Course not. No need to be worried. Like Prongs said, it's just Snape. You're such a _worrier_, Wormtail."

"No, I'm not!" Peter protested.

"Yeah, you are," said Sirius with a grin. "But it's all right. You and Remus are supposed to keep me and James in check, yeah?"

"Yeah," said Peter, apparently relieved that he had been given some important role. "Yeah, that's right."

"Bloody git better not take too long in the shower," Sirius grumbled. "I'm shattered." Naturally his tone had a well-honed note of entitlement and complaint to it, but he didn't really mean it. It was to cover up the concern that remained – the unsettled feeling he couldn't quite shake that Snape presented a real threat to them: that Snape would not rest until he'd exposed them.

He voiced none of this. Not to Peter, who fell asleep before he could even get in the bathroom, nor to James, who emerged from the shower still in an infectiously good mood. He certainly didn't mention it when they visited the Hospital Wing the following day to see Remus, who was wearing a hopeful smile with shining eyes and fewer injuries than ever before.

He did not, however, push it to the back of his mind. Although at that moment he tried to tell himself that James was probably correct – that Snape was only making vague guesses and would not act without confirmation – he knew even then that he was not entirely convinced. Sirius was suspicious of anyone who wasn't straightforward; people who were not straightforward were not predictable.

And, in Sirius's mind, that made them very dangerous indeed.

* * *

For a Gryffindor to be friends with a Slytherin was a rare thing indeed.

It had become an even rarer occurrence over the last few years: members of the two Houses were more likely to be seen hexing than befriending one another. Lily Evans, however, was not one of those people who worried about what everyone else was doing. Much to the bemusement of most of her year, ever since she had arrived at Hogwarts, the short, red-haired Lily Evans – popular, friendly, who could have been friends with anyone – could often be seen shadowed by a lanky figure with a hook nose and long black hair, dressed in the colours of Slytherin House.

This morning was not one of those days.

Lily arrived alone in the Great Hall forty minutes before classes started. She stood still for a second, surveying the students, trying to pick out her friend, but he was conspicuously absent. Her lips pursed as she saw the fifth year Slytherins staring at her and sniggering. They knew whom she was looking for. They probably knew where Severus was; perhaps they'd even engineered it so that the two of them could not have breakfast together as they'd planned. Lily was becoming very suspicious of Severus's friends from Slytherin. She saw less and less of him: he spent much more time in the company of his House mates. Lily, too, had her own friends – just this morning she'd left Alice the daunting task of raising Marlene from bed – and she didn't resent Severus that, but something about _his _friends made her skin crawl.

With a disappointed sigh, she took a place at her own House table. It was conspicuously devoid of fifth years, but Lily knew Alice and Marlene would be down soon, and so she pulled a basket of crumpets towards her, opened her Transfiguration textbook in preparation for her class that day, and began reading and eating. Not long afterwards, the Hall began to fill up, and after a short while Alice was sitting down next to her, while Marlene collapsed into a seat opposite.

"Thought you were meeting Snape," said Marlene by way of greeting, before she let out a loud yelp – provoked, Lily could only guess, by a sharp kick from Alice under the table.

"I thought I was," she said gloomily, closing her book and pouring some more tea. "But he hasn't even turned up to breakfast."

"Maybe he's avoiding you," Marlene suggested. The way she jumped sharply suggested she had earned herself another reprimand from Alice; her blue eyes narrowed in a glare at the mousy-haired girl sitting next to Lily.

"It would be weird if he was," said Lily. "We've argued plenty of times before and _he's _usually the one begging to make it up with me!"

"He's probably just overslept," Alice advised kindly. "I bet you see him later and he's really apologetic."

Lily hoped so. But she couldn't be sure. Their argument had been two full days ago – the longest they'd ever gone without speaking – and, although it had been a rehash of now-familiar themes, Lily had the sense they'd strayed into previously unchartered territory. He'd sneered at her friends and, finally fed up with it, Lily had lashed out too, telling Severus in no uncertain terms what she thought of _his _friends and their fascination with the Dark Arts. That had got Severus going – quick to defend, Lily thought with some dejection, his friends' fondness for spells that were definitely banned on school premises (maybe even by the Ministry). She realised now that perhaps she'd gone about it in the wrong way – she'd let it all build up inside her and explode at the last second. Maybe the way to get Severus to listen to her was to keep needling away at him, calmly and persistently. They'd been friends for a long time. He was bound to listen to her eventually.

She'd planned to start this morning, having approached him yesterday to ask if he wanted to have breakfast together. Perhaps he'd sensed what was coming and had decided to avoid her.

"No Snivelly this morning, Evans?"

Distracted from her thoughts and furious, Lily spun around to see the grinning face of James Potter. He was accompanied – as always – by Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. Remus Lupin was nowhere in sight: Potter and Black had told anyone who'd asked yesterday that he'd come down with a mild case of flu.

"Thought you asked him to meet you for a romantic breakfast," Potter continued. He'd been sitting in front of Lily in Ancient Runes yesterday and no doubt had heard Lily's whispering to Severus. "Mind you," said Potter, feigning a look of regret Lily was sure wasn't genuine, "he probably looked in the mirror this morning and realised he hadn't washed his hair for about a year. I don't think we'll see him at least until lunchtime."

Black and Pettigrew chortled appreciatively at this. There was a snigger from Marlene too, but she hastily stifled it at Lily's glare.

"You think you're funny, but you're not," Lily growled. "He's probably just been held up, that's all."

If she had hoped this would shut Potter up, her hopes had been misplaced. Potter burst into laughter. Knowing that most things Potter did were to wind people up, Lily waited patiently for his next dig.

"_Good _one, Evans," he said eventually, wiping his eye of an imaginary tear. "_Held up_ – geddit, Padfoot?"

And before Lily could begin to fathom what this might mean, he wandered down the table accompanied by Black and Pettigrew. They sat down together, still grinning like idiots.

Lily turned back to Alice and Marlene.

"Did you two understand any of that?" she asked.

"I got the bit about Snape's greasy hair – _will you stop kicking me, woman?"_ Marlene snapped at Alice.

"Well, it wasn't funny," said Alice loyally, and Lily felt a rush of gratitude towards her friend: the only one she'd never heard openly criticise Severus, though Lily knew that even she didn't really pretend to understand why Lily and Severus were friends.

"But what did he mean – _held up_?" Lily persisted.

"My guess?" said Alice, licking her yoghurt spoon and pushing it to one side. "They've probably strung Snape up somewhere and left him there."

Alice had always been perceptive, and, indeed, it would not be the first time that Potter and Black had done something of that ilk. Lily gritted her teeth, standing up and pulling out her wand.

"They can't just – "

Almost automatically, it seemed, Alice reached up and pulled her back down.

"Don't play up to them," she said. "They'll let him out before classes start. They're not idiots."

"Aren't they?" Lily grumbled, but she knew Alice was right. Potter and his friends had a knack for getting into trouble, but it was rarely _too _much trouble. Leaving Severus wherever they'd dumped him would only increase their chances of being caught by a teacher.

Sure enough, it was Potter who told her where she might find her friend. As the three boys were passing the girls on the way out of the Great Hall, he turned his head over his shoulder, as though as an afterthought.

"Oh yeah," he said. "If you're looking for Snivelly, I think I saw him…er…_hanging around _in the Entrance Hall?"

The three friends burst into laughter and had sauntered away before Lily had managed to stop spluttering with fury. Ignoring Alice and Marlene's shared anxious expressions, she pushed away the remains of her breakfast, picked up her bag and walked quickly from the Great Hall.

She'd half-expected to find Severus strung up in the middle of the Entrance Hall being laughed at by a crowd of students, but there was no such spectacle: students were moving through the atrium, clutching their books, moving off for their first class of the morning. Lily stopped in the middle of the Entrance Hall and turned on the spot slowly, trying to understand what she'd missed. What had Potter said? _I think I saw him hanging around in the Entrance Hall_. But Severus wasn't here: Lily would have been able to pick his dark hair and sallow features in an instant.

Then Lily's eyes landed on the cupboard.

She took a few hesitant steps forward, aware that if she was wrong, people would wonder if she'd gone absolutely mad – the cupboard usually held a few old brooms and a mop and bucket. But she gritted her teeth and yanked on the cupboard door. It was locked. She pulled out her wand, muttered, "_Alohomora_", and the door swung open.

Severus's upside down form and unusually purple face greeted her. His dark eyes bulged – whether from surprise at seeing Lily or because he'd been hanging upside down for too long wasn't clear. He must have been there for some time, because he wasn't in his school robes but a pair of ill-fitting black trousers and a shirt that had ridden up so it bunched under his chin, revealing the pale skin underneath. Wincing, Lily pulled out her wand and quickly cast the counter-charm. Severus fell down, gasping and spluttering.

"Are you all right?" Lily asked anxiously, helping him to stand.

"Fine!" Severus hissed, yanking his arm away from her and looking around self-consciously.

"It was Potter and Black again, wasn't it?" she demanded. "I'm going to – "

"They were out all night last night!" Severus interrupted. He looked slightly better now, the ugly purple colour fading from his complexion, but he was wheezing as he hunched over, trying to get the words out.

"Who?"

"Potter! Black and Pettigrew too! I saw them! And you _know _what last night was, it was the _full – "_

"Shut _up,"_ Lily hissed, and Severus did, at least, have the good grace to fall silent. Lily looked around and then hastily pulled Severus away from the cupboard and into a small alcove, away from the prying ears of the other students.

"I told you Lupin's a – "

"You've got to stop spying on them, Sev," Lily interrupted before Severus could excitedly convey his theory about Remus Lupin – _again_. "I've _told _you – "

"But they were out _all night! _Professor McGonagall won't like this at all – "

"Severus Snape, you are _not _going to Professor McGonagall!"

Lily's nostrils flared as she stared her friend down. Severus's eyes bulged.

"I've been there for _three hours!"_ he said, so outraged he was almost spluttering. "If you just – they're so – they're –"

Lily regarded him coolly.

"If they'd just done it to pick on you, Sev, I'd have every sympathy," she said, and meant it. Few things made her angrier than the Gryffindor boys' behaviour towards her friend. "But I'm not letting you go to Professor McGonagall just so you can be a snitch."

"But they were out of bed!" said Severus. "All night! They were breaking the rules – "

"So were you," said Lily promptly, and Severus's mouth set into a sullen line. She sighed. "Look, they were totally out of order – "

"You obviously don't really think that." Severus's voice rose sharply. "You're always sticking up for them!"

"You _know _that's not true," said Lily. "I just don't understand why you get so worked up about them – even when they're not doing anything to you! It's like you set out to get them into trouble."

The way that Severus's eyes slid to the floor sent a shiver of disgust down Lily's spine.

"Well, if _that's _your aim," she said, "I've got no sympathy for you whatsoever. You'd better go and get changed. There's only five minutes before class."

Not very long ago – perhaps a mere matter of months – Severus would have tried to grab her arm as she walked away. Lily's eyebrows melded into a frown as she was allowed to catch up with Alice and Marlene without interruption. Maybe he was still angry with her after their previous argument. But it sat uncomfortably with her, that he might care a great deal less about what she thought of him than he ever had before.

"Everything all right?" Marlene asked as she drew closer. Lily shifted her bag further onto her shoulder.

"Fine," she said. "He's fine. Let's just go to Transfiguration."

* * *

Lily felt distracted and bothered all through her first class. She was sat behind Potter, Black and Pettigrew (moved forward permanently for misbehaviour some months before - as if moving them made any difference) and she glared at them without paying much attention to her teacher. The three miscreants didn't seem to notice. Five minutes into the lesson, Peter Pettigrew slumped over onto his desk, evidently fast asleep. Black entertained himself for several minutes by tickling Pettigrew's nose with a quill. Shortly afterwards, however, the elbow he'd been resting on the desk slipped sideways, and his head rolled off his hand and onto his arm, so that he too was snoring softly. Only Potter remained upright, leaning back in his seat. Unusually he actually appeared to be making notes – perhaps he felt some responsibility as the only one of the four friends who was present and conscious. Though the idea of Potter feeling any sort of responsibility was frankly laughable.

In any case, it didn't stop him from messing up his hair every other minute.

_Honestly_, thought Lily. _He probably thinks it makes him look roguish or something – _

And then suddenly the back of Potter's head was replaced with his face as he tilted his chair back on two legs and leaned round to look at her. She blinked and straightened up, moving her gaze quickly to Professor McGonagall, who was demonstrating the correct wand motion for switching spells.

Potter was not to be deterred.

"Did you find him?" he whispered. Lily's eyes slid back to him and she saw, with disgust, that he was grinning.

"If I hadn't," she whispered furiously back, "he'd still be hanging upside down! That's really dangerous, you know – "

"Aww, c'mon, Evans," Potter said with another infuriating grin, "we'd never have left him there all morning – "

"Do you have something you'd like to share with the class, Potter, Evans?"

Lily flushed bright red as she realised everyone's eyes – including Professor McGonagall's beady-eyed glare – were on them. Potter swung his seat back onto on four legs and turned round again as Pettigrew and Black shot bolt upright.

"No, Professor," he said earnestly. "Evans was just telling me how skilfully she thought I played in the last Quidditch match."

"Even if I thought so, I wouldn't dream of telling you, Potter," said Lily in exasperation. Professor McGonagall's lips twitched with the smallest movement, but it did not detract from her formidable glare.

"Detention for both of you," she said. "There are ten weeks until the exams. Don't let me catch you talking again."

"It wasn't Evans's fault, Professor," said Potter immediately.

"If it bothers you, Potter, perhaps next time you might consider not dragging Evans into trouble with you," was all Professor McGonagall had to say, before she resumed her lecture.

Alice and Marlene shot Lily sympathetic glances – it wasn't too often Lily landed herself in detention. _Got landed in detention_, she reminded herself. This wasn't _her _fault. At least Potter had admitted that.

Professor McGonagall held them back after class to arrange their detention.

"It'll be a short one," she said, eying them both over her glasses, "in light of the fact you need the revision time more than a punishment. You'll both report here for one hour on Tuesday evening at 5 o'clock."

An hour. That wasn't too awful. Clearly Potter thought they'd got off lightly too, because as Professor McGonagall gathered up her papers and swept from the room, he turned to Lily and grinned.

"It must be because you're here," he said. "If it had been me and Sirius, we'd have got at least three hours. Probably with Filch."

Lily responded by turning away to pack up her belongings. Potter already had his bag slung over his shoulder, but still he hung back. Lily thought she knew why.

"Sorry I got you into trouble," he said. Lily's head jerked up. That was _not _what she had been expecting. Potter was the sort to breeze through the hallways, generally getting himself and as many other people as possible into trouble as he went. She didn't think she'd ever heard him sound _remorseful_.

"Still," he continued, messing up his hair at the back again and grinning, "at least you'll be in detention with me. I'll keep you entertained."

It had been too much to hope that he was being genuinely decent. Lily rolled her eyes, packed up the last of her things, and swung her bag over her shoulder.

"Evans, wait," Potter said, as she was about to go through the door. Lily turned around, her expression neutral. Potter was rubbing the back of his neck and he suddenly looked awkward.

"I…er…are you going to Hogsmeade next weekend?"

Ah, there it was. This was not, of course, the first time he had asked her about her plans for next weekend, nor the first weekend he had asked about. She'd almost got used to his nervous shuffling – even come to quite enjoy it, because when else did James Potter look so unsure of himself?

The thing was, he'd never actually managed to get past asking her about her plans.

It wasn't that Lily wasn't prepared for it. In fact, rumours had been flying around since October that James Potter fancied Lily Evans. It had seemed like the whole school was holding its breath, waiting for him to ask and for her to accept (because, really, who would turn down James Potter?).

Well, they were all in for a sorry surprise. Because not only was Potter apparently incapable of asking her out, but Lily was _very _prepared to turn him down.

It wasn't that he wasn't good-looking; he was (though all Lily's friends agreed that Sirius was the really handsome one). And he certainly had a lively sense of humour – something which Lily's boyfriends had often conspicuously lacked. But the way he was always looking at her when he did something 'cool', as if he was only doing it to show off, irked her considerably. And, in any case, quite a few of the things he did were, in Lily's opinion, decidedly _not _cool. Including hexing her best friend. And everyone else who happened to annoy him.

"But, you know, Lil," Alice had said one evening in the dorm as they discussed it, propping herself up on her elbows as she lay stomach-down on her bed, "he does seem to _really _fancy you. Maybe if you tell him he's a toerag he'll stop."

So Lily had decided, that night in November whilst discussing it with her friends, that if James Potter asked her out, she would simply take him aside, tell him nicely but firmly that he was an arrogant show-off, and wait to see if it had any effect. If it did, perhaps she'd _consider_ dating him. If not – well, she hadn't lost anything, had she?

The only problem was that Potter didn't ask her out. She'd thought he was going to a few times as they'd come out of classes and he'd hung back, or when he'd come over to her little group in the Common Room. But he'd always ended up saying something else.

"Oi, Evans, you going to the next Hogsmeade weekend?" he'd started the last such exchange, as they came out of Ancient Runes.

Lily had stopped and motioned for her friends to go on without her.

"Yes," she said calmly, watching with no small amount of irritation as he ruffled up his hair at the back. He was nervous, she decided. His hazel eyes darted around as he shuffled his weight from one foot to the other. "Why do you ask?"

There was a lengthy pause, before he straightened up. "Just wondering," he said. "'Spect I'll see you there."

"I expect you will," said Lily, nearly rolling her eyes at this failure of Gryffindor courage, and striding away, leaving him standing in the Charms classroom by himself.

And the time before that, when he'd – unusually – left his gang in the corner of the Gryffindor Common Room and had approached Lily and a large group of Gryffindor girls, who blushed and giggled and nudged Lily in the least subtle way they could manage.

"All right, Evans?"

His tone was nonchalant enough, but the red blush of his neck gave him away. Lily had to suppress a smile.

"I'm all right, Potter," she said. "Are you? You've been out of Black's company for at least fifteen seconds by my count."

A quirk of the lips; amusement in those hazel eyes. But Marlene didn't give him a chance to respond.

"What drags you from the company of your fellow _Marauders_?" Lily's friend laid emphasis on the last word, her tone almost mocking as she referred to the nickname James and his friends had given themselves just that year. James didn't respond. Instead, his eyes were fixed on Lily's. She felt the heat rise up, spreading across her chest and up her neck, the way it always did when she was embarrassed. But she said nothing; waited for him to speak.

It was, at last, he who broke their stare, turning back to Marlene.

"Just heading up to the dormitory to get something, McKinnon."

Marlene, never one to make things easy for anybody – even a boy she had grown up with – refused to let it go: "What?"

But James, who had received perhaps only a quarter of the detentions he really should have done in his time at Hogwarts, was not one to be pinned down easily. He smirked and tapped his nose.

"Sorry, McKinnon," he said. "Top secret Marauder business." He winked and sauntered away, leaving Marlene shaking her blonde curls in disbelief.

Lily hadn't really needed Marlene to point out that James had just wanted to talk to Lily.

So she wasn't optimistic that today he was finally going to summon up the necessary courage. She feigned a nonchalant expression as she adjusted her bag over her shoulder and looked vaguely around the Transfiguration classroom.

"Maybe," she said. "I haven't really decided. Lots of work to do, you know."

"Oh yeah, me too," said Potter. He tried to lean his elbow casually against the blackboard, missed, and staggered a few steps before straightening up. Lily had to bite her tongue to keep herself from laughing. He cleared his throat. "Maybe I'll see you in the library?" he asked hopefully.

"Potter, I'll be surprised if you can even find your wayto the library," said Lily, before she opened the door and stepped out of it. _Merlin. _She'd never seen such a coward. She hurried off down the corridor before he could follow her – funny as Potter's attempts to ask her out were, she'd had quite enough of him already that morning.

Besides, she needed to tell Alice and Marlene about James Potter's latest hilarious attempt before break was over.

* * *

Stumbled.

He'd bloody _stumbled._

James took the steps up to the Hospital Wing two at a time, still annoyed with himself. How could he be so cool and collected usually, and turn into some sort of clumsy, incoherent mess in front of Lily Evans?

_She's just a bird, _he repeated to himself as he climbed the stairs. He'd found himself thinking those words repeatedly as of late – every time he'd tried to work up the nerve to ask her to Hogsmeade. There were hundreds of girls at Hogwarts – and he'd snogged more than a handful without losing his cool demeanour. Something about the Gryffindor redhead, however, transformed him into a babbling idiot.

He strode into the Hospital Wing at full pace, heading for the bed at the end where the curtains were drawn. He could hear familiar voices and, sure enough, when he put his head around the curtain, Sirius and Peter were already there, lounging beside Remus's bed.

"Tell us you made notes during Transfiguration, Prongs," said Sirius lazily. He and Peter were picking at a box of chocolates they'd no doubt claimed to have brought for Remus. "Moony here's doing his nut about the little nap Wormtail and I took."

"Yeah, I've got them." James chucked the stack of parchment onto the bedside table as he slid into the last seat, dumping his bag at his feet as he grinned at his friend lying in bed. "All right, Moony?"

"Pretty good, actually, Prongs." Remus's voice came out hoarse, but he too was grinning, and James couldn't fail to notice how much _better _Remus looked than usual. He looked tired, of course – that was inevitable – but it wasn't unusual to find him with bandaged arms and hands, with thick cream on his face to heal the damage before he went back to class. Now there were a few light scratches down his arms, but nothing noticeable, nothing serious.

"Moony here thinks old Pomfrey's suspicious," said Sirius. He didn't sound in the least bit bothered by this possibility.

"Not exactly," Remus whispered. He couldn't hide his amusement. "She's just a bit…ah…confused. Think she's looking at the lunar charts to see what was wrong with the moon last night."

"Blimey, you make her sound disappointed," said James.

"Probably is, the mad cow," said Sirius. "Adds a bit of excitement to the usual monotony of dishing out Pepper Up potions and fixing up Quidditch accidents…"

They laughed together, before Peter inquired about James's detention.

James shrugged uneasily. The thought of spending an hour with Lily Evans made his stomach feel funny. "Really short. Tuesday at five for an hour."

"Good job she didn't find out what you were talking about, or it'd have been three," said Peter, his mouth full of the chocolate he'd brought up for Remus.

"Making rude suggestions to Lily Evans, were you, Prongs?" Remus teased. James forced a grin, but not before he'd sent a glare at Peter. They'd agreed they _weren't going to tell Remus. _And that included that they'd been caught by Snape as they returned from the Shrieking Shack that morning.

"Yeah, that's right," he said easily. "Telling her exactly what I'd like to do if only I could get up to the girls' dorms…"

* * *

There was one thing that not many people knew about Lily Evans, and that was that she hated Herbology.

It irked her, sometimes, that people just _assumed_ – because she was a Prefect and got on well with all the teachers – she must love every subject. It was widely presumed, for instance, that, given Professor Slughorn's never-ending praise of her, her favourite subject was Potions. In fact, Lily hated the dank, windowless dungeons. She hated even more the humid atmosphere that twenty cauldrons created, making her hair damp and limp, and the way she came away smelling of the worst things imaginable.

Nothing, however, could compare to her hatred of Herbology.

Her mind was focused on this thought as she eyed the fanged geranium in front of her with a degree of savage contempt to rival the flower's fangs. She'd never been keen on Herbology. If she was honest with herself, her dislike probably stemmed in large part from her mother's obsession with all things horticultural, which drove Lily spare. It was also inevitably something to do with the fact that Lily was not the outdoorsy-type: having dirt up to her elbows was not her idea of fun. And looking at the miserable weather outside, it seemed she was also destined to have dirt up to her knees by the time she made it back to the castle.

She was _definitely _dropping Herbology after the O.W.L. exams.

No one, however, looked terribly enthralled by the lesson that day. The rain beat down relentlessly on the roof of Greenhouse Five, forming a sort of rhythmic background to the fifth years' slow repotting exercise. It was the lesson before lunch and everyone seemed devoid of focus. Some of the Ravenclaws were sitting on stools, lazily prodding their geraniums with a stick. The Gryffindors were slightly more reckless: to Lily's left, Potter and Black were daring one another to stick their fingers in the flowers, which were snapping away madly in their direction. Black held up two fingers and Potter, not to be outdone, grinned and shoved his left hand into a large flower. He let out a loud yelp, jumping backwards and pulling his hand away sharply as the flower snapped, but he and Black were already laughing. Lily's lips twitched as she half-heartedly used her trowel to move a handful of dirt into the new pot. At least _someone _was enjoying this stupid subject.

There was suddenly a loud cry quite unlike Potter's exaggerated yelp. Heads snapped around to see Peter Pettigrew's tragic expression as he nursed a bleeding hand. Lacking the quick reflexes of Potter and Black, his attempts to join in their game had not been successful. With a sharp reprimand and a reminder to the rest of the class to hurry their repotting, Professor Sprout sent Pettigrew up to the Hospital Wing.

Pettigrew's expression was one of dejection as he slipped out of the greenhouse by himself and Potter and Black started attempting to feed their geraniums squares of chocolate. It somehow made Remus Lupin's absence more conspicuous. Lily frowned as she studied his empty stool.

"Come _on, _Lily, there's only a few minutes left and I don't want to have to wait for you. I'm _starving_," Alice moaned next to her. Naturally, she had already finished repotting her geranium, and was now sitting on her stool, using her wand tip to dig the dirt out from under her fingernails. Lily grimaced but obliged by speeding up her troweling.

"Merlin's balls, Evans, we'll have graduated by the time you finish at this rate!" Before Lily could stop her friend, Marlene had jabbed her wand at the geranium, which uprooted itself and was haphazardly dumped into the new pot. It was clearly less than happy about this arrangement: worse, its root fangs were now on display and gnashing away madly.

"You can't just _do _that to plants!" Alice stopped cleaning her nails and, throwing an exasperated look at Marlene, leaned over to carefully stroke the stem of the geranium. It stopped biting and gave a small shiver, as if Alice's stroking had calmed it in some way. Gingerly, she picked it up by its thick stem with one hand and, using her other, began filling the new pot with dirt. Lily exchanged a grin with Marlene. Some way or another, Alice always ended up repotting their plants for them. She was easily the best in their year at Herbology.

"Thanks, Alice," Lily said brightly. Alice rolled her eyes.

"It's all right, I know you're both useless at this subject," she said, but she couldn't hide her grin as she put the geranium in the pot and carefully patted down the soil around it. "You're definitely letting me copy your Charms homework, though. And you owe me a manicure tonight."

"I'll even let you use my new ever-changing colour nail polish I got in Hogsmeade last weekend," Marlene promised, throwing her belongings into her bag as everyone around them began standing up and packing away. Lily did the same, her stomach rumbling at the prospect of food.

They had all forgotten what a miserable day it was, however, and everyone halted reluctantly at the door.

The boys were the first to go, Black pushing Potter out of the greenhouse into the pouring rain and Potter using a summoning charm to ensure his best friend was pulled out with him. Unimpressed, Black flicked his wand and Potter was hoisted in the air by his ankle. Potter grimaced as the rain clearly dripped down his back, but his grin matched Black's as his friend cheerfully strolled back to the castle, dragging Potter upside-down with him. Lily couldn't help but smile, in spite of her frustration with Potter earlier that day. He and Black _did _have a good sense of humour.

"Are we going to run for it?" Alice sounded doubtful, even as the Ravenclaw girls edged past them, robes dragged over their heads.

"I suppose so." Lily took off her outer robes and, grimacing, put them over her head as her friends did the same. "Shall we?"

But they needn't have worried. As they stepped into the rain, a figure came sprinting down towards them and, as Lily squinted, she saw it was someone she recognised and he was carrying a large umbrella.

"Severus!" she cried, throwing off her robes and diving under the umbrella as he opened it.

"Couldn't have brought more than one, could he?" Marlene grumbled. She had never liked Severus and had been very vocal about it, especially in the last year. Lily knew Marlene didn't properly understand – that she didn't know Severus like Lily did, and all she saw was Severus's horrible friends.

"I only needed one," said Severus pointedly. Marlene's mouth set in a hard line.

"Suit yourself," she said. "Come on, Alice."

Lily watched as her two friends ran up towards the castle.

"I've asked you to be nice to my friends," she said to Severus, who was watching her intently.

"You don't need them," he said. "I'm your best friend. You're much more talented than they are."

Lily knew it was fruitless pointing out to him that Alice's marks were at least as good as hers and quite considerably better than Severus's in some subjects. "They're still my friends," she settled for. And then, because she didn't want an argument: "But thanks for bringing the umbrella."

Severus gave her a small smile and held the umbrella above their heads as they walked back to school. Lily grinned happily back, the rain inadequate to dampen the relief from having been released from Herbology for another five days and that Severus was clearly ready to make it up with her.

"I saw Potter and Black on my way down. Idiots," he said. "Black was using the Levicorpus spell again."

"Yes, that's funny, isn't it, how everyone's using a spell you invented?" Lily jumped neatly over a puddle. It had been Potter and Black who had found out about Severus's made up spell first hand – because he'd used it on them. Before the week was out, the whole school seemed to know it, and it was difficult to move down a corridor these days without someone being hoisted into the air, ankle first. It would have been the one Potter had used to string Severus up in the cupboard that morning. Lily had thought it a silly charm, but she was deeply impressed by Severus's ability to create new spells. She knew he had created others, too, but he'd so far refused to show them to her.

"None of them seem to realise it was _my spell_," Severus grumbled next to her.

"Well, _you _know it was yours," said Lily. Severus said nothing, and they walked half the way back in silence.

"Was Lupin in class today?" Severus suddenly asked as they were nearing the castle.

Lily hesitated. Severus saw through her.

"You know it was the full moon last night," he pressed. "And you know how werewolves – "

"_Stop it,"_ said Lily, rounding on him. She did not want to have this discussion again today. She got on well with Remus – they were both Prefects together – and she didn't like the way that Severus had latched onto him that year; that he had become convinced that the quiet, mild-mannered Remus ought to be expelled. "He's got the flu. Potter said so yesterday."

"Potter _would _cover up for him," said Severus dismissively. "I suppose he knows all about it – "

"Who cares?" said Lily, her tone impatient. "_I _don't. Come on, let's get to lunch. I'm starving."

And before Severus could make any further argument for his werewolf theory, Lily pulled her robes over her head once more, and ran out into the rain.

* * *

**A/N: **Mrs Bennet is, of course, named for Elizabeth's interfering mother in _Pride and Prejudice. _I envisage she's pregnant with Mrs Norris but that's my own obsessive interpretation.

There's slightly more of a Lily emphasis in this chapter than there is in the rest of the story.

Thanks so much to those who reviewed the Prologue – it means so much to read what people think about this. I've extended my gratitude with a quick update. I'd be so grateful for any reader's thoughts. Thanks for reading!


	3. A Different Kind of Battle

**Disclaimer: All rights to characters, places, objects and concepts you recognise belong to J.K. Rowling.**

**A/N: This chapter was originally 11,100 words. Even I thought that was too long. I originally deleted a scene, but got talked out of it at the last minute by ArwenFairTinuviel (if you haven't checked out her story, 'The Great Mistake of Severus Snape', I highly recommend it. Arwen – I hope the scene doesn't come as a disappointment!). As a result of that, the next chapter will be reasonably short and not too long in coming. By and large I'm still not entirely satisfied with this chapter, but I've been over it so many times I don't know what else to do with it. **

**Thanks, as ever, to all those who reviewed the last chapter.**

* * *

**Chapter Two: A Different Kind of Battle**

**19****th**** March 1976**

Fridays were James's least favourite day of the week.

There were, he would argue, solid reasons for this. First, Double Potions with the Slytherins occurred on a Friday afternoon: since James hated Potions _and _Slytherins, it was a doubly bad combination. Second, there was no Quidditch on a Friday (Anita Picklock, the Gryffindor Captain, preferred to get them up at the crack of dawn on Saturday instead). Third, James and his friends were nearly always in detention on Friday evening.

This Friday was going to be particularly bad. Tonight, James would be in detention by himself. He'd Transfigured a second-year Slytherin into a snake on Tuesday: Professor McGonagall, whilst unable to quite hide how impressed (and bemused) she was by his solid grasp of human transfiguration, had wasted no time in dishing out a double detention for his actions – the first to be served tonight and the second on Monday, which made three schooldays in a row that he had detention. It was not this, however, that led him to make his gloomy prediction that Friday morning. It was instead a conclusion reached as he played with his cereal and watched a sixth-year Ravenclaw approach the Gryffindor table and, specifically, Lily Evans. He scowled deeply as she blushed at whatever he said, and moved up on the bench to accommodate him. James thought his name might be Laurence Boot.

"I think people should stick to their own House tables, don't you?" he asked Peter loudly, turning to the boy on his right. Peter glanced up from his sausages in confusion, before his eyes flickered down the table.

"I think she heard you," he said.

James scowled. "Who?"

"Who else, Prongs?" Remus had reappeared that morning; he'd made a quick recovery this month. His smile was wry as he reached out and helped himself to more bacon. "He's a Prefect, you know," he said innocently. "Maybe they're talking about Prefect stuff."

"Who cares?" asked James. "I wasn't bothered about what they were talking about."

"_Sure_," Sirius drawled. "Next you'll be telling us you don't even like Evans."

"Perhaps," said Remus slyly, "he's more bothered about the fact they're actually talking at all, you know?"

James's response was to pour his pumpkin juice into Remus's cereal, who spluttered in indignation. James ignored him. "I don't even like her that much. It's Padfoot who's made a big deal about it."

His friends snorted simultaneously. But as James glowered, Sirius leaned over to Peter with a grin.

"Wormtail, Exhibit A, if you please."

Before James could protest, Peter had snatched James's bag and dragged out his Arithmancy textbook, flipping to the page they'd been reading in their last class and holding it out. Drawn in the top left-hand corner was a Snitch with wings with unmistakably the initials 'L.E.' inscribed inside. James flamed red as his three friends snorted. _Bloody Godric._ He knew he should have crossed out those stupid initials.

"Exhibit B," said Sirius dryly. It was James's Potions textbook next; a broomstick with a flier attempting to catch another 'L.E.' snitch through the air.

"Mate, I don't even know what that's supposed to be," said Sirius, wrinkling his nose. James scowled and snatched back his textbooks and his bag. All right, so drawing wasn't really his forte. He wouldn't be doing it anywhere his friends could see again, that was for sure.

"They're just _doodles_," he protested. "They don't _mean _anything."

But as he heard laughter he knew belonged to Evans, James whipped around with another scowl, causing all three of his friends to snort into their breakfast again.

"Yeah, all right, Prongs," said Sirius. "And my mum's quite a nice woman, once you get to know her."

"Your mum's a hag," said Peter.

Sirius grinned, but James wasn't paying much attention. He picked at his breakfast some more, waiting until he saw Laurence Boot smile at Lily and stand up. James shoved the last spoonful of cereal in his mouth before he grabbed his bag. Remus and Peter looked at him confusedly, but Sirius was twisting round in his seat to see what James's scowl was fixed upon. And, like the brilliant best friend he was, he jumped out of his seat, wand already in hand.

"Sorry, gentlemen," he said, the glee in his voice making him sound not sorry in the least. "We have some business to attend to before class."

"You don't have to come with me," James muttered as they followed Boot through the Great Hall.

"Course I do," said Sirius cheerfully. "Anyway, I bet you've not even got as far as what you're actually going to do to him, and I've got some brilliant ideas I'm dying to try out."

"Yeah?" James asked, as they halted in the Entrance Hall. It wasn't too full yet – there was still fifteen minutes before classes started. But Boot was weaving his way through the other students. James's wand was already in his hand, his mind running through the possibilities as he watched Boot's thick stature moving away.

"Allow me," Sirius muttered. He raised his wand, pointing it at Boot's back, and said under his breath, "_Mucus Solum."_

A burst of slime erupted out of Sirius's wand, dropping to the floor and weaving in between the clusters of students, creating a gooey, green carpet, as though an invisible, giant slug had suddenly been let loose in the Entrance Hall, starting from James and Sirius and winding towards Laurence Boot. His back turned, the Ravenclaw Prefect never saw it coming: his feet were wiped out from underneath him as the slime slipped under his feet and he fell with a nasty thud onto his back into the gooey mess. There was a sudden panic as students pushed one another to get out of the way; James and Sirius, however, walked calmly over to Boot, stepping over the slime, their way now cleared by the other students, who had created a circle around them, rippling with anticipation.

Boot was blinking confusedly up at the ceiling. He was probably thinking that sixth-year Prefects simply did not _expect _to be attacked as they were going about their business.

Evidently, he hadn't heard of James Potter and Sirius Black.

He rolled over, revealing that his back and hair were covered in the green goo, and attempted to stand up, but James was ready.

"_Levicorpus!"_ he shouted.

As if some invisible hand had seized the hem of Boot's right trouser leg, the Ravenclaw Prefect was yanked sharply upwards. His outer robes – most students, if they could afford it, wore trousers with outer robes, rather than full robes, though the _Levicorpus _spell was much funnier when used on a victim wearing the latter – fell past his head and his brown leather bag slipped over his shoulders and fell to the floor with a loud thump.

"Very funny," Boot said. "Who is it? Winsor?" His eyes widened in surprise as James and Sirius stepped sideways into his field of vision. They had never spoken, but Boot could not fail to recognise the two of them. _No one _in the school could.

"Fraid not," said James cheerfully. "Just thought we'd give everyone a little morning treat. Fridays can be _such _a bore, can't they?"

"Just livening things up," Sirius agreed. He flicked his wand – the fact it was a non-verbal spell just heightened the suspense. At first James thought it hadn't worked: then he realised that Boot was expanding – that his shirt buttons were suddenly straining and his skin was rapidly turning purple; each of his fingers were swelling up like Cumberland sausages and his eyes were bulging –

"Well, I don't think he'll fit at the Gryffindor table now, do you?" asked Sirius coolly, as Boot, now at least three times his usual size, started to drift upwards into a horizontal position.

"Terrible, really," said James, feigning a look of deep regret.

There was an incoherent mumbling from Boot – muffled no doubt by the fact that his throat had now swelled far beyond the size a neck ought to be, making his top button ping off and his tie snap.

"What's that?" asked Sirius loudly, putting his hand behind his ear. "I didn't quite catch that."

"I think he's asking for more, Padfoot," said James seriously. He raised his wand and drew an arc one way, and then another. And Boot began to spin – slowly at first, and then faster, until he was just a blur. Several people had started laughing, though a few of the girls squealed and ducked as bits of slime flew off Boot and over their heads. James's lip curved upwards. On a grey Friday morning, there were probably few funnier sights to be had than a Prefect that looked like a giant, spinning blueberry.

"_Stop it!"_

James and Sirius whirled around from where Boot still spun above their heads. Lily Evans was standing feet away, looking furious.

"Stop what?" asked James cheekily, but a second later Lily's wand was out and pointing at him and he raised his hands. Lily Evans's wand was not one to be messed with: he'd witnessed her Bat Bogey Hex on only a handful of occasions, but it had been enough. "All right," he sighed, and raising his wand, flicked it so that Boot moved over their heads, deflated rapidly, and then dropped heavily between them, face-first into the carpet of slime. Several students laughed; Lily grimaced as she reached down and began helping Boot to his feet.

"I liked him better all swelled up," said Sirius regretfully as Boot stood. The Ravenclaw swayed for a minute, looking unsteady, and James realised what was about to happen a second before Boot lurched forward and vomited at Lily's feet. Sirius roared, but James's laughter was cut abruptly short at the scowl Lily sent him. She was evidently _not _happy. And he suspected it wasn't entirely because she was going to have to change her footwear before their first class.

_But it was worth it_, James thought. _She can't possibly fancy someone who hurled all over her shoes._

"Potter! Black! My office this _instant!"_

Professor McGonagall had arrived. Students scattered as she approached, her thin lips pursing as she pulled up her dark blue robes to step over the walkway of green slime that had been created. James and Sirius shared a grin: it was always better not to get caught, but they were particularly fond of their ability to render their Head of House's mouth to an almost invisible line.

"Mr Boot, I suggest you go to the Hospital Wing," she said sharply, as two more Ravenclaws appeared, taking Boot by either arm.

"Bloody git," James muttered to Sirius.

"No," said a voice behind him, "_you're _the git, James Potter."

James turned to find Marlene McKinnon standing there, arms folded, her pretty features contorted into a frown. He had known her since he was young; their fathers worked in the Ministry together. She was undoubtedly the bluntest girl James knew: her sharp tongue and impatient tone were well known throughout Gryffindor House.

"Ah, McKinnon," he said, "no need to be like that – "

"He was asking her if she'd switch patrols with him next week, you great prat," said Marlene irritably, and before James could come up with a reply, she'd pushed past him and stormed after Lily.

"Patrols, eh?" said Remus, who had just arrived with Peter. "No Hogsmeade trip, is it?" His lips twitched and James had the suspicion that Remus found his overreaction hilarious. But Professor McGonagall was jerking her bony finger at them and so James had to drop the matter temporarily in favour of following his Head of House in the direction of her office.

* * *

"Why," said Professor McGonagall, sitting down in her leather chair and fixing them both with an eagle-eyed stare, "is it always you two?"

Her steely tone would have made any other student wilt with embarrassment: Minerva McGonagall, who had been Prefect and Head Girl herself at Hogwarts and had spent her last nineteen years as a teacher perfecting ways to make her students squirm, knew precisely what buttons to press in order to extract remorse from her charges.

All her charges, that is, except two.

Sirius Black had sat down without being invited, put his feet up on her polished desk as if it were his own, and pulled her tin of biscuits – her _special _tin, reserved for particularly difficult conversations and filled with Honeyduke's best ginger newts – into his lap, and had started rummaging through it. This was much to the amusement of his co-conspirator, James Potter, who fell into a chair before Professor McGonagall had a chance to sit down herself, stretching his long legs out in front of him and resting his elbows on the arms of his chair, fixing Minerva McGonagall with a smirk that could have been intended to seduce or intimidate her.

She was not inclined to acquiesce to either.

"I can answer that," said James Potter immediately, but Professor McGonagall was not going to fall for that one again. The trick, she had learned, was not to let this pair get a word in edgeways. If one did not follow that rule, one would be two hours and a whole tin of ginger biscuits down before discipline even got a mention.

"It was a rhetorical question, Potter," she said icily. "And Black, for Merlin's sake, get your feet off my desk."

"Oh, I'm _terribly _sorry, Professor," said Sirius Black, swinging his legs from the desk and placing them on the floor. "Didn't see you there. Biscuit?" He held the tin out to her as James Potter snorted, and she snatched it from him with a glare. He merely smirked and held up a newt-shaped biscuit in his hand, before biting off its head. "To what do we owe this pleasure?"

The key problem with Sirius Black, thought Professor McGonagall irritably as her eyes narrowed at him, was that he was so extraordinarily difficult to dislike. They _both _were: Black, with his charm and extraordinary good looks, and Potter, with his relentless good humour and cheer, were some of the most popular students in the school for a reason. Professor McGonagall had faced this battle since the pair of them had been Sorted into her House four and a half year ago. They were both exceedingly bright, with a sharp sense of humour that could have the whole class – teacher included – in fits of laughter if you didn't watch them carefully. Professor McGonagall found herself frequently lamenting the fact that they chose to use their talents to mess around and to hex, it seemed, half the school.

"It's not a pleasure, Black," she snapped. "And do up your top button, for Merlin's sake."

Black smirked again as he reached up to do as she asked. Her eyes slid to Potter. He, probably, was beyond redemption uniform-wise: his shirt was hanging out of the bottom of his jumper, _two _of his buttons were undone and his tie was so loosely knotted it was in danger of unravelling altogether. And that _hair. _He was grinning as he pushed his glasses up his nose.

"Can we make this quick, Professor?" he asked. "Only I wouldn't want to be any later for Professor Babbling."

"Don't give me that rubbish, Potter," said Professor McGonagall. "You will be leaving here only when you've provided me with a satisfactory explanation for why you felt the need to attack a Prefect from another House without provocation."

Potter's face darkened immediately at the mention of his victim, which told Professor McGonagall that Potter had probably, on this occasion, instigated the action. Next to Potter Black made an indignant noise.

"How do you know it wasn't provoked?" he demanded. "I call that bias, don't you, Prongs?"

"Agreed, Padfoot. That much smarminess was too much for any student to suffer."

Those ludicrous nicknames. They had emerged, like four particularly irritating mosquitos, barely six months before with the sole purpose, it seemed, to create a ridiculous air of mystique, together with the collective name they had dubbed themselves and their two co-conspirators, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew: the _Marauders_. At least that made some degree of sense: in fact, Professor McGonagall harboured a deep suspicion that she had unwittingly bestowed the name upon them on one of their many visits to her office when she had told them, not without a certain degree of coldness, that school was no place for _marauding_, and if they wished to engage in such activities, she kindly requested it be during the holidays.

She pitied their parents.

"Really," James Potter continued, "we were doing everyone a favour. We ought to be congratulated."

"Professor, you should've said!" Sirius Black said with a grin. "You're most welcome. But we really ought to be getting along to Ancient Runes, so – " He half-rose from his chair.

"Sit _down, _Black. Of course I'm not congratulating you. That display in the Entrance Hall was nothing more than a cowardly – "

"Now, come on, Professor, we're not _cowards_."

"_Despicable – _"

"I reckon we ought to take that as a compliment, Prongs."

"_Immature –_"

"Actually, Padfoot, I'm starting to think she's quite peeved."

"Actions I have ever had the displeasure of witnessing!" Professor McGonagall finished, breathing hard through her nose. "And kindly refrain from using those ridiculous nicknames! They are neither amusing nor clever!"

Two smirks – so alike it was almost eerie, given that they were not related – greeted her. She inwardly cursed: to mention those names was only to play precisely into their hands.

It irked her considerably to think that she, Minerva McGonagall, had to worry about playing into the hands of two teenagers.

"What do you have to say for yourselves?" she demanded.

Two more identical smirks. They both opened their mouths simultaneously –

"No!" she said, holding up her hand before they could say a word. "I don't want to hear it, thank you. Detention for both of you. _Separate_ detentions," she added sharply, as they shared a grin. "Professor Slughorn has requested that you two are not permitted in detention together again."

She was rather understating the matter. Potter and Black's last detention with the Potions master had ended in Horace clattering into the staff room, covered head to toe in potions ingredients that were indecipherable, screaming and spluttering that he would take it as a personal affront if any teacher ever again allowed them in detention together. The staff had privately agreed that detention did not seem to have much impact on Potter and Black anyway, but Professor McGonagall could hardly be expected to take points from her own House every time the pair of them did something that required discipline. No doubt Gryffindor House would have been in minus points before the school year had even started.

"I think that covers everything," she said crisply. "I suggest you both get along to Professor Babbling's class."

It was the one redeeming feature of disciplining the trouble-making pair, she thought, that at least it reached an end at some point.

But James Potter stretched out his legs again. "Actually," he said, "I've decided I don't want to go to Ancient Runes after all. I'm quite enjoying this little chat."

At _some _point, Minerva McGonagall thought rather irritably to herself.

* * *

"You know, Prongs," said Peter as they sat in Potions that afternoon, pretending to make Strengthening Solution (a task rendered rather difficult by the fact they'd used up the entirety of their salamander blood supply the previous month by adding it to the Slytherins' body wash). "I don't think it's Laurence Boot you need to be worried about."

"Thanks, Wormtail, I think I got that one from Marlene this morning." James's tone was sour at the reminder of the trouble he had got himself into with Lily Evans that morning. His half-chopped wormwood lay in front of him, but he made no move to continue with it. He and Peter had already planned that Peter was going to fake an injury roughly two-thirds of the way through the lesson and James would have to take him to the Hospital Wing. Sirius was keen to get on board with this plan and, under any other circumstances, it would have been Sirius, rather than Peter, with whom James was carrying it out. Unfortunately, due to an incident involving the Slytherins' cauldrons the previous week, James and Sirius had been banned from working together in Potions for the rest of the term. And since Remus was a lot keener to do the work properly than James was, Sirius was chained to the lesson that day.

"That's not what I meant," said Peter. He'd given up working long before: his pomegranate lay only half-squeezed somewhere to his right, having been abandoned twenty minutes previously. "_That's _what I meant." He jabbed a finger to James's left, and James followed where he was pointing.

Towards Lily. And where she was working on her potion with Severus Snape.

"Snivellus? You think I should feel threatened by _Snivellus?_" James snorted, not bothering to hide his derision as he glanced over the sallow-faced Slytherin with his dark, greasy strands of hair that hung limply over his face.

"Don't you think he fancies her?" Peter rested one elbow on the table. "You watch. He's practically slobbering all over her."

Hesitantly, but nonetheless complying, because Peter was a brilliant observer, James twisted in his seat to look at Lily and Snape again. Of course, they were doing the work properly – they didn't always work together in Potions, but when they did they were easily the best pair in the class, much as it pained James to admit it. Slughorn practically wet himself with delight whenever he examined the potions the two of them produced. Lily was currently measuring out the salamander blood while Snape chopped the hellebore. James was about to twist back to announce that _he _couldn't see anything out of the ordinary – other than an apparent enjoyment of Potions, which was weird enough, frankly – when Lily leaned over Snape to add the blood to the potion. And James saw Snape's eyes flicker upwards, towards where Lily had unfastened her top buttons in the heat of the classroom. Snape's lips curved into a smile.

James thought he might be sick.

"Slimy git," he said, but now he was watching, he couldn't tear his eyes away. It was as though his brain was registering all the little things he'd missed before – the way Snape's hand lingered just too long as he touched Lily's arm; the way he found totally unnecessary ways to brush up against her; _Merlin forbid_, the way his head tilted in such a position that James _knew _he was inhaling Lily's scent…

"I'm going to bloody kill him," he growled.

"Who now?" Remus had caught James's words and was twisting round in his stool with a grin. James merely scowled; Peter supplied the answer.

"Snivellus. He fancies Evans."

"How revolting." Sirius had twisted in his stool too. "Better watch out, Prongs; she likes him a lot more than she likes you."

James's blood ran cold, even in the heat of the Potions classroom. "You – you don't think – " he spluttered.

"She's not _exactly _telling him where to go, is she?" said Peter doubtfully. Almost in unison, the four of them turned to look at the unlikely pair again. Lily was laughing. Snape's smirk was almost too much to bear.

"Lily's nice to everyone," said Remus mildly.

"Not to me," said James, stabbing his wormwood angrily with his knife. It would have been far more satisfying had it been Snape, he thought. "I'm – going – to – bloody – _kill _– him. Just you wait. At the weekend – "

"Er, Prongs? Are you sure that's such a good idea?"

James lifted his scowl to fix it on Peter, but his friend held his ground.

"Remember what you said on Wednesday, after the full moon?" he said.

James's gaze shot to Remus, who thankfully had already turned back to his hellebore; James grabbed Peter's collar and pulled him close to whisper.

"What're you on about?"

"You know," said Peter, his voice low and urgent. "That we couldn't do anything too bad to Snape, cos it would confirm his…uh, _theory _about Moony? Well, if you have a go at him, he might not _get _that it's about Evans, mightn't he?"

Mmm. James had not thought of that. It was a surprising observation from Peter, who could usually be relied upon to support any Snivellus-baiting, but Peter _had _been anxious about Snape knowing Remus's secret, James remembered.

"All right, everyone, I'll be coming round to have a look at how you're getting on!" called Slughorn from the front of the classroom. "You should have already added the salamander blood and be getting ready to add your wormwood…"

"Time to go, Wormtail," James muttered, sufficiently distracted from his contemplations on Snape to realise when time was short. Peter grinned and stuffed his textbook into his bag as James scooped up their materials. Then, without warning, Peter let out a loud howl.

Everyone in the classroom turned around to look as Peter whimpered in his most pathetic way. James had to smother a grin. Peter was easily the best actor of the four of them. Remus was completely incapable of controlling the muscles in his face when he was lying, whilst no one was stupid enough to believe the innocent voices James and Sirius adopted whenever they were trying to get themselves out of trouble. Sure enough, Slughorn hurried to their workbench, looking anxious.

"Dear boy, what's happened?"

"He burned himself _really _badly, Professor!" As Slughorn lifted his eyebrows, James realised, too late, that he probably should have left Peter to do the talking.

Thankfully, Peter too seemed to have realised their plan was in danger of going awry.

"It – _hurts_!" he gasped, clutching his hand to his chest.

"Well, let me see, boy – "

"NO!" Peter wailed, as Slughorn reached out. The Professor withdrew his own hand quickly, looking taken aback. "Don't touch it!"

Slughorn took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. "Well, I suppose you'd better go to the Hospital Wing – "

"I…I don't think I can make it by myself, Professor," whined Peter pathetically. "I can't even carry my bag!"

Slughorn's prominent gaze flickered between Peter and James, as if he deeply suspected that something was amiss but he was unable to put his finger on precisely what it was. He rested his hands on his enormous stomach.

"Well, I suppose – "

"Cheers, Professor!" said James quickly, scooping up the two bags. "C'mon, Wormy." He bolted from the classroom, Peter staggering behind him, still letting out long wails of anguish.

Once down the corridor, James pushed Peter's bag at him.

"I reckon you quite enjoyed yourself there," he said. Peter grinned.

"He can _never _work it out!" he said. He was almost bouncing up and down on the spot in excitement. It was funny, James thought, how bloody _pleased _Peter always was to be included. "So what're we going to do now?"

The temptation to find some way of getting back at Snape, to send the snivelling git a message that he did not have a chance in hell of landing Lily Evans, was almost overwhelming. But Peter was right, James thought regretfully; now was not the time to provoke Snape. Besides which, Lily's furious expression from that morning was still all-too-fresh in James's mind: he knew, instinctively, that she would not approve, that it would worsen her mood with him even more.

He _would _get back at Snape – that was certain. Just not today. Perhaps when both Lily's temper and Snape's obsession with Remus had blown over.

"Common Room, Wormtail," he said, his tone tinged with regret. "Think we'll just enjoy an early start to the weekend."

* * *

**22****nd**** March 1976**

Up until the age of fifteen, Lily hadn't really bothered with any of the Gryffindor boys in her own year.

It had started out completely intentionally. Lily hadn't wanted anything to do with the two boys – James Potter and Sirius Black – who had been so horrible to her best friend on the Hogwarts Express, and she deliberately ignored them, and anyone associated with them, for the first six weeks. By then she had accumulated so many new friends that she hadn't really neededto make any more. It was a trend that continued throughout her school years: she had plenty of friends in both her own House and others, and although the snub was no long intentional, she didn't miss the company of the Gryffindor boys. She knew them well enough – they had every class together – but by and large she didn't pay them much attention.

Fifth year, of course, had changed that, because Lily had, much to her surprise, been made a Prefect, and her fellow Prefect was Remus Lupin. With twice-weekly patrols she could hardly _avoid _getting to know him. He had surprised her with his kind nature that Lily had been drawn to instantly. He was unassuming and funny in a way that Lily didn't expect. It simply didn't matter that she already had plenty of friends because Remus Lupin was a friend worth having. Lily had even idly considered whether she might be attracted to him She'd gone as far as trying to ask him to Hogsmeade in October – strictly as friends, so she could assess the situation – to which Remus had responded with a polite decline. To this day Lily wasn't quite sure how he'd managed to wriggle out of it. It became clear, two weeks later, _why _he'd said no, of course. James Potter had evidently called dibs.

The notion had infuriated and exasperated her – she was sure the timing of the rumours exploding about James Potter's attraction her just two weeks after she had indicated some interest in Remus was no coincidence – and she felt like seizing Remus and snogging him senseless at the breakfast table just to stick two fingers up at Potter, notwithstanding the fact she wasn't even sure she definitely _liked _Remus.

Severus had not been at _all _happy when she had suggested this to him, and had started reiterating his theories about Remus Lupin's monthly disappearances.

It didn't matter. By December Lily had come to the regretful conclusion that she really liked Remus, but on a strictly platonic level. There was no spark, there – just friendliness. The idea had disappointed her a bit, but she valued him as a friend and she still looked forward to their patrols around the castle.

And so that evening she beamed as she caught sight of him waiting for her in the Entrance Hall. She slid down the bannister for the last few steps, jumping off the end and landing neatly in front of him.

"You're very chipper for a Monday night," he said dryly.

"The week hasn't robbed me of my optimism yet," Lily returned. "Anyway, it's the time of our patrols. What's not to like?" She linked her arm through his and grinned at the reluctant smile she'd managed to coax from her fellow Prefect.

"It's not _usually _the time of our patrols," Remus reminded her. "How _is _Laurence Boot, anyway?"

Lily's smile dropped at the mention of their fellow Prefect, who had been absent from the meeting earlier in the evening. "He's fine – Madam Pomfrey let him out of the Hospital Wing yesterday."

Remus frowned. "It shouldn't have kept him in the Hospital Wing for two days – it was only an Inflation Hex."

"Yes, well, he's got severe asthma apparently," said Lily. The whole thing had made her feel horribly guilty – she'd gone to see him in the Hospital Wing over the weekend and he'd still looked unwell. "Stupid prats. He only wanted to swap patrols with us so he could celebrate his six-month anniversary with his girlfriend tonight!"

"_I _know that," said Remus with a grin.

"You should've stopped them," Lily grumbled.

Remus at least had the decency to look abashed. "I'm flattered that you think I have any control over James and Sirius," he said mildly. He paused, his grin dropping a little. "It's all right; I think Dumbledore made the same mistake when he made me Prefect. He thought I could keep my friends in line."

Lily glanced at him, surprised. "That not why he made you Prefect, Remus," she said.

Remus's smile was now positively faint. It always surprised her, when these unexpected bouts of self-deprecation and doubt seemed to set in: before she had got to know Remus properly, she had assumed the only way he could put up with his friends' egos must be if he himself had a big head.

"You're too kind, Lily. But I hardly deserved it. My record wasn't exactly stellar."

Lily snorted. "Who else were they going to choose? Sirius Black? _James Potter_?" She squeezed his arm. "Not that I'm saying you were the best of a bad bunch," she said with a grin.

"But that's the implication," said Remus good-naturedly.

"Well, I – " Lily stopped up short, halting in her walk as her gaze locked in on a cupboard not very far from them. A very noisy cupboard, by all accounts. Lily eyed it warily. This was definitely the worst part of being a Prefect. She felt like such a bloody hypocrite. A sudden moan from beyond the cupboard doors made her turn, grimacing, to Remus. "Do you want to do the honours or shall I?"

"Oh, you can do it," said Remus, grinning. "I know how much you love it. Wouldn't want to deprive you."

"Git," Lily muttered, but she strode forward and yanked open the cupboard door.

There was a loud female squawk that reminded Lily far too much of Petunia, followed by a deep, disappointed groan. Lily's face flamed as she realised the culprits – two sixth-year Hufflepuffs she recognised as Joshua Forthright and Caislin Cutting – were only half-dressed. And it wasn't the half she would have _preferred _to be dressed.

"Urgh! In a _cupboard? Really?_" she said before she could stop herself or consider something more Prefectly to say. Remus sniggered behind her. She covered her eyes. "Fifteen points from Hufflepuff," she mumbled, her face hot. "Just get back to your Common Room."

"But that's seven and a half points each – "

"Make it twenty, then!" said Lily fiercely, taking away her fingers away from her permanently-scarred eyes. "Go!"

Not waiting to be told again, and looking more than slightly taken-aback by being admonished by a younger student, Josh Forthright and Caislin Cutting pulled on their clothes hurriedly and sprinted down the corridor. Lily turned to Remus, who was almost bent double in silent laughter.

"I'm glad _you _find this funny!" said Lily indignantly.

"Sorry," Remus apologised, straightening up, though he didn't quite manage to rid his eyes of his mirth and that ridiculous grin was still plastered to his face. "It's just you're hilarious when you catch students. You look so indignant that they've made you do it. I wish I could make you do it every time."

"It's embarrassing!" Lily moaned. "Thank _Merlin _I've never caught our dorm mates!"

"Ah well," said Remus, looking amused, "cupboards aren't really my friends' style."

Lily arched her eyebrows, sure that meant that Remus knew perfectly well where his friends went and he'd make sure they never checked there. Not that it would have mattered; Marlene in particular had a habit of dropping hints as to which cupboard she'd chosen for her latest snog in the accurately-placed hope that Lily would steer clear. She had not, naturally, told Remus this, which perhaps accounted for the worried look he was now giving her.

"I don't think they're out snogging tonight," he said quickly. "James is in detention again, but I think Peter and Sirius are cooking up some joke."

"Hope it's funny this time," Lily muttered. Remus grinned.

"Ah, Lily, I _know _you find their pranks amusing."

This was an accusation which Lily couldn't – and didn't want to – deny; she thought she'd never laughed so hard as at the joke they had managed to pull off for Halloween that year. Alice had had to thump her on the back repeatedly when she'd choked on her pumpkin juice.

"Their _pranks_ are funny," she said. "Hexing other Prefects _isn't_."

Remus was silent. There was a faint blush in his cheeks, and Lily realised she must have hit a nerve. It was unfair, she knew, to expect Remus to keep them in line. Not even Dumbledore himself could control James Potter and Sirius Black. She opened her mouth to say something consoling, or perhaps anything that wasn't so pointed towards his friends, but she was cut off by a loud voice from inside the nearest classroom.

"No, you idiot!"

Lily halted abruptly. She _knew _that voice. And, judging from the expression she noted on Remus's face as her eyes slid towards her fellow Prefect, so did he.

"Now, see here, Black, if you're going to be like that – " The second, sulky tones were unmistakably those of Peeves. Lily raised her eyebrows at Remus, but he had gone oddly pale.

"Er, Lily," he said, "maybe we'd better – "

"He's out past curfew, Remus," Lily sang. She had no real intention of giving detention to her own House-mate just for being out past curfew, but it was quite fun winding Remus up. He got so _antsy. _

"Padfoot," came the timid voice of Peter Pettigrew, "maybe, you know, this isn't such a good idea. Prongs didn't – "

"No, no, c'mon, Peeves," came Sirius Black's voice, obviously ignoring Pettigrew, "it's _really _simple – '_my hooked nose is foul' - _c'mon – "

Lily's smile dropped like a stone. Remus was rubbing his face with his hand.

"Lily, I _really think – "_

"One more time! And then you'll be ready for breakfast tomorrow!" came Black's voice loudly. There was a loud sigh, a whiz that sounded like Peeves had swooped through the air, and then his high, cackling voice bursting into song:

"_Oh, someone's got a dirty secret, _

_And he's crap at hiding it, _

_He wants a red-headed Gryffindor_

_With green eyes and a sharp wit."_

It was definitely not what Lily had been expecting. She felt the heat creep into her face. _Oh Merlin. He's made up a song about Potter fancying me_.

"Let's just go, Lily," Remus pleaded beside her. But Lily was rooted to the spot.

"_Whenever she leans over him,_

_He feels himself start to sweat._

_Luckily his grease already_

_Makes him seem quite wet. _

_Wait – grease?_ Black wouldn't persuade Peeves to sing a song that was derogatory about his best friend! A cold wave of dread washed over Lily and she opened her mouth, but Peeves was continuing with the third verse.

"_His name is Snivellus Snape and_

_He doesn't walk but he prowls;_

_He hardly ever showers_

_And his hooked nose is foul._

_He's slobbering over Evans – "_

"ENOUGH!" Lily burst out, throwing open the classroom door. Peeves was floating upside down above Professor McGonagall's desk; Black and Peter Pettigrew were leaning against two of the student desks, arms folded, mouths agape as they stared at her in shock.

"Evans!" Black was the first to recover. "Smashing of you to join us."

"It's Potty's ickle-wickle crush!" shouted Peeves in glee, swooping over their heads. "Potty and Prefect sitting in a tree – "

Black snorted, evidently amused, but he wasn't about to let Peeves get too cocky. "Leave off, Peeves."

"If you're going to be like that, I won't sing your little song – "

"NO ONE IS SINGING ANY SONGS!" Lily shouted. She whipped out her wand, pointing it at Peeves. "If you sing that song at breakfast – _or at any other time_ – I swear the Bloody Baron will hear about it."

Peeves shut up immediately, floating sullenly above her. "No need to get in a hissy fit, Perfect Prefect," he said, before he ducked out of the classroom door, swooping down the corridor. Lily kept her wand out and trained on Black.

"You didn't like our song?" asked Black innocently. Pettigrew sniggered, but his face dropped immediately when he caught Lily's eye. She gritted her teeth.

"Well," came Remus's voice behind her, "I think it's probably best if they go back to the Tower –"

"You knew about this!" Lily whirled around, her wand pointing at Remus, who blinked. But something flickered in his face before he started to splutter an unconvincing denial, and she knew she was right. "Remus, I can't believe you! This is really cruel – you ought to be _stopping _them – "

"_Oi_," said Black. "He can't tell us what to do. Besides," he continued, folding his arms defensively, "he would've enjoyed it, same as anyone else."

"_I _wouldn't have enjoyed it!" said Lily, outraged. "It's totally – "

"Accurate?" Black suggested. "He does fancy you, Evans."

"I – " Lily faltered. She was not, typically, an arrogant person. She did not flatter herself that boys were chasing her, even though her friends made vocal protestations otherwise. But she _had _tried hard to ignore, over the last two years or so, the way Severus had a tendency to gaze intensely into her eyes, the way he sometimes lingered just a bit too close… "He doesn't deserve this, _however_ he feels!" she said instead.

"It'd put him off!" said Peter, but he was silenced with a glare from Lily. Black was not so easily deterred.

"Maybe Evans _likes _Snivelly's attention," said Black, his eyes glittering. "Maybe she doesn't _want _us to put him off."

"I – we – that's not – " Lily spluttered.

"All right, Evans," said Black. "Look me in the eye and tell me you don't fancy Snape. And we won't let Peeves sing his song after all, all right?"

"HIS – NAME – IS – SEVERUS!" Lily all but screeched. "And it's _none _of your business, Black!"

Black's disbelief was written all over his handsome face; he had always been easy to read, wearing his emotions in plain sight.

"You _can't _fancy Snape over James!" he said incredulously.

Lily stared at him. "What has _Potter _got to do with this?" But she already knew – of course. _James _fancied her. And if Remus could not be allowed a shot, then Severus _certainly _could not; Sirius Black was nothing if not fiercely loyal to his best friend. It didn't make it all right to pick on _her _friend, though. "It's not a flipping _competition, _you idiot!" she said.

Black arched his eyebrows. "You know, Evans."

"Twenty points from Gryffindor!" Lily snapped. "And if you _dare _let Peeves sing that song, I'll tell McGonagall exactly who's responsible, too. Understand?"

"Got it," Black muttered, but Lily had already turned on Remus.

"I'm done patrolling for this evening," she informed him. "Especially with someone who can't even tell his friends when they're being absolute _pillocks_."

And she stormed away, leaving three of her House mates staring after her. Sirius, of course, was the first to find his voice.

"Well, I think she overreacted, don't you?"

But Remus was staring unhappily after Lily, shaking his head. "It _was _cruel, Padfoot," he said quietly. "She obviously doesn't fancy him, but he is her friend and she doesn't want to hurt him."

"What about Prongs?" Sirius asked sullenly. He was not usually very patient with Remus's attempts to make him feel bad about his actions; not like James, on whom it more often had an effect. He was _itching _to have a go at Snape after Tuesday night; James could not possibly complain that this said anything about Remus, so it was the perfect cover. And if he could give James a laugh in the process, even better.

"Prongs," said Remus angrily, "had enough sense to keep out of this one, Padfoot."

"Oh, come off it," Sirius scoffed. "He's in detention, else he'd be here, same as us."

"No, Sirius." It sounded remarkably like Remus's teeth were gritted, and Sirius reflected idly that Remus always got most antsy when he thought he wasn't behaving like the proper Prefect. "You know perfectly well if you'd thought James wanted to be in on this, you'd have waited for him to be out of detention."

Sirius might always maintain that James knew him best, but Remus knew him well enough. Sirius had known, of course, that James wanted to lay off Snape for a bit after Wednesday morning – and not just because Peter had been fretting about it since they'd left the Common Room to find Peeves. Remus didn't know the reason for James's odd display of restraint, of course, but he was perfectly aware that James and Sirius did nearly everything together, and that Sirius would only have left James out for good reasons. That reason, of course, was the Sirius, unlike James, was in some mood for restraint. He was in the mood for firing warning shots at the greasy snake – to show him he couldn't sneak around after them and hope to get away with it.

Only now, of course, his plan had been ruined.

"No need to get all high and mighty," he muttered. "I've had twenty points taken away. Bloody hell, what's the point of having a Prefect for a mate if he doesn't get you out of trouble?"

And it was his turn to push past Remus and stalk away down the corridor.

* * *

**A/N: I had a quick re-read of HBP and Slughorn's words on Lily the other day. It's quite important to me that she comes across as someone brave, funny and clever but with a keen sense of justice (which is what puts her so much at odds with James and Sirius). I would love to know what you think of my portrayal so far. Reviews are even more motivating than Ben and Jerry's ice cream.**


	4. Tensions Heighten

**Disclaimer: All rights to characters, places, objects and concepts you recognise belong to J.K. Rowling.**

**A/N: As always, thanks to those who reviewed - it's much appreciated. Sorry this took longer than anticipated; I'm still not entirely happy with it, but it's about time we pushed on, don't you think?**

* * *

**Chapter Three – Tensions Heighten**

**23rd March 1976**

It was fair to say that James Potter had experienced quite a number of detentions in the four and a half years he had spent at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. If one were minded to be precise, he had received exactly eighty-four detentions, twenty-three of which had been accumulated just that year, ever since Sirius had suggested a race to one hundred at their fifth Welcome Feast. It was an impressive record, particularly given the rules of the bet: that detentions could not be _deliberately _sought; only incidentally received. Unfortunately, it paled next to that of Sirius, who had made it to ninety-three. Sirius was fond of boasting of this lead, and James of pointing out that Sirius had _already _been ahead when the bet was made. Remus would smirk, his paltry forty-eight no real threat, and Peter tended towards gazing at them with something akin to adoration, as if sheer admiration would somehow raise his mere thirty-nine to a level where he could realistically partake in the competition.

It particularly rankled that James had served three detentions that week and was still trailing his best friend.

None of this was on James's mind on Tuesday evening.

He actually legged it down from Gryffindor Tower to Professor McGonagall's office – the first time he had ever run to a detention, and so fast that his tie flew over his shoulder and his trousers, a little loose from the growth spurt he'd experienced that year, threatened to fall down. James swore as he remembered that he'd forgotten, once again, to purchase a belt at the last Hogsmeade weekend, but he grabbed his waistband with one hand and continued to pelt it down towards the Tower which contained the office of his Head of House. It probably wasn't even yet five past five, but he'd sworn to himself he wasn't going to be late for this one. This was a _special _one. Because it was his first ever with Lily Evans.

Lily Evans, he knew, had received her own handful of detentions whilst at Hogwarts. He'd witnessed the dishing out of a few of them – a few for passing notes about Quagmire Fortesque's snogging technique (James still cringed when he remembered that) and one particularly memorable one assigned by Slughorn, who had, much to James's disgust as he had been dragged off to the Hospital Wing, been unable to contain his praise for Lily's thorough grasp of the Bat Bogey Hex.

It was therefore much to James's surprise that, when he skidded to a halt outside McGonagall's office at precisely three minutes past five, Lily was still waiting.

"Not your first detention, is it, Evans?" he joked. Lily eyed him rather warily, and James pulled at his collar in awkwardness, suddenly painfully aware that he had not bothered to do up his top button nor, in fact, tuck his shirt in.

"Eleventh, actually," she said. Her tone was clipped and James's hand jumped from his collar to his hair. She was annoyed with him – probably still because of Friday and his altercation with Laurence Boot. _Shit. _

"Ah…first with McGonagall, then?"

"Yes," said Lily shortly.

That explained a lot. James dropped his hand from his hair and rapped sharply on the door. Lily gaped at him, her composure suddenly slipping.

"I thought she'd come out and get us!" she spluttered.

"And it's that sort of thing," said James with a grin, as Professor McGonagall called for them to come in, "that will make people think you're a detention virgin, Evans."

He pushed open the door and waited for her to go in. Lily looked rather taken aback at this show of chivalry, but she brushed past him so close he could actually smell her shampoo. His stomach jumped; he grimaced as he followed her into the office.

Their Head of House did _not _look happy. She eyed them beadily over her glasses; her arms were folded tightly across her body.

"You're both late," she rapped out. "When I give out an hour's detention, I expect a little _gratitude _to be shown."

"Evans was here, Professor," said James, closing the door behind him. "She just didn't know to knock."

Lily shot him an incredulous expression that James didn't quite understand; Professor McGonagall merely sniffed.

"Well, I suppose few students have had quite the experience in detention you have, Potter."

James grinned.

"I'm really sorry, Professor," said Lily. "What would you like us to do?"

"Well, it might take you past six o'clock now," Professor McGonagall checked her watch before looking up at them both. "I've got two second-years in the Transfiguration classroom who simply cannot manage the _simplest _of…" She seemed to remember herself and adjusted her glasses. "They need to be tutored on turning rabbits into goblets."

Lily straightened up, obviously pleased with this, but James had dropped his casual stance and barely noticed.

"_Tutoring?"_ he spluttered. "What kind of detention is _that?_"

"An easy one, as they go," said Professor McGonagall dryly. "If I were you, Potter, I'd go to the Transfiguration classroom quickly before I change my mind and send you to the Trophy Room instead."

James grinned in spite of himself. "Can't, Professor," he said. "Sirius is already there."

Professor McGonagall glared. "_Go."_

Ordinarily James might have tried to push his luck a little – the idea of tutoring was frankly beyond the pale and deserved some argument – but Lily was out of the door in seconds, and so James darted after her instead. She was halfway down the corridor before James managed to catch up with her. He fell in line with her quick steps, but she didn't acknowledge him.

"Sirius and I aren't allowed in detention together anymore," he said, eager to fill the silence. "Not since we blew up Slughorn's supply cupboard when we were supposed to be cleaning it."

The corner of Lily's lips twitched before setting back into a straight line, as though she didn't quite have control over her facial muscles. James had to fight a grin at this involuntary show of amusement; he shoved his hands into his pockets.

"He was _furious_ – went stampeding off to the staff room. Obviously we'd scarpered by the time he came back," he confided conspiratorially.

But this time Lily's mouth remained resolutely tight; she stared ahead without looking at him. James deflated, feeling his shoulders sag. Bloody hell, was he _ever _going to get it right? He knew that ordinarily she would have found it quite funny – he'd heard a few tales about her talking herself out of detentions. She had to be annoyed about Friday morning still. Bloody Laurence Boot. He scuffed his feet angrily.

"_Tutoring,"_ he muttered – because at least that was _something _he could complain about out loud. "What a _joke_."

"Why can't you just be grateful?" Lily's voice was cool. "Why complain?"

James wrinkled his nose. "Tutoring _second years_. Really? I'd rather be in the Trophy Room."

Lily folded her arms as she descended the stairs to the ground floor. "What's so bad about tutoring second years?"

At least she was talking to him, he reflected. "Second years are so _annoying_."

"Some people think the same thing about _you_, Potter," said Lily, arching her eyebrows.

"Aw, c'mon, Evans – don't be like that."

"Or what, Potter?" Lily snapped. "You'll write another horrible song designed to embarrass me and my friend?"

They were outside the Transfiguration classroom; James stopped dead, staring at her. "That wasn't _me_," he spluttered. "I _told _Sirius not to pick on Snape – "

"Very noble, I'm sure," said Lily coolly.

James frowned, his pride jarred. "I wouldn't have done something like that," he said. "Not something that'd embarrass you too." The moment he'd said the words, he wished he could take them back. He sounded _pathetic – _literally the saddest person in the school. That wasn't going to bloody impress her. He felt the heat rise up in his neck.

Sure enough, Lily's expression remained stony. "But it would've been all right if it had just embarrassed Severus?" she challenged.

It was something James, who made it his business to embarrass Snape at most available opportunities, could hardly deny. Angrily, he shoved his hands into his pockets again. "I've got no interest in picking on Snape just now," he muttered.

"That makes a first," said Lily. She turned away; put her hand on the doorknob to go into the classroom. James caught her arm.

"No, Evans – "

"Don't 'Evans' me," she hissed, rounding on him. He jerked back in surprise: seldom had he ever heard so much venom in her voice, and certainly not directed at him. "You and Black set out to humiliate _anyone _who irritates you – Laurence Boot; Severus; Merlin, even that _third year _this morning. When are you going to grow up and realise that you can really hurt people's feelings? I've had to avoid Sev for _four days_ because he'll _know _something's wrong – and how can I tell him what Peeves nearly did?"

James just gaped at her. She eyed him coolly before she turned away again, putting her hand back on the doorknob.

"I know you find second years annoying, Potter," she said, "but try not to humiliate them too, all right? I'd rather not get another detention because of you."

And with that she pushed open the door and swept into the classroom, leaving James, face burning, in her furious wake.

* * *

"It's official: she hates me."

Sirius should have seen it coming. It did not matter that they were halfway back down a tunnel that, as they had just discovered, led to Madam Rosmerta's cellars; that speculating as to what uses they could put the tunnel to was more interesting than discussing Lily Evans; nor that, just last week, James had maintained – in the face of all other evidence – that he did not fancy their fellow Gryffindor. Nor did it matter that he had just interrupted Sirius's opportunity to bask in Peter's praise of his ability to discover passages behind fourth-floor mirrors. Because James had, not many hours before, had his first, disastrous detention with Lily Evans and James Potter was not, by the large, the sort of person who was used to suffering in silence.

"Who cares?" said Sirius indifferently, betraying no irritation that James had cut Peter off mid-sentence. He'd probably rather listen to James anyway, even if it _was_ Evans his best friend wanted to talk about. He walked next to James, brandishing his lit wand in front of him. "Unless you like her more than you've been letting on."

"I think," said Remus dryly, from Sirius's right, "we can all agree Prongs likes Lily more than he cares to admit."

"No, I don't," said James, his tone resentful. "She's just a bird. S'just annoying, isn't it? Having someone hate you for no reason."

A soft snort from down the line, the other side of James. "You're not a very good liar, Prongs," Peter informed him. "The whole school knows you fancy her."

"Well, I didn't tell them," said James hotly. Sirius grinned, knowing his guilt was evident even in the dim light of his wand.

"_You _weren't telling her any time soon," he said. "And you didn't want her to start dating Moony, did you?"

"She was like bloody _ice _in detention."

"Well, if you will insist on hexing every male that speaks to her," said Remus, the amusement evident on his face.

"Evans doesn't seem to like it very much when you pick on people, does she?" said Peter – possibly a tad too cheerfully, Sirius thought with a wince. James was particularly sensitive these days where Lily Evans was concerned. Sirius was rather wary about that; he had been since the beginning of the year, when he'd noticed the first of James's Frowns. James's Frowns (so troubling they merited a capital letter) appeared, generally, whenever James had done something in an attempt to impress Evans and Evans failed to convey the sort of reaction James had hoped for. James's odd behaviour concerning the spirited red-head, however, had halted at these Frowns for a good while – probably because they had all been distracted perfecting the last stage of the Animagus transformation. But since they'd achieved that, James's preoccupation had increased dramatically; Sirius's best mate seemed determined to expend his newfound extra time and energy on chasing Lily Evans – a great waste, it seemed to Sirius, when there were plenty more fun things to do with one's time.

Luckily, Sirius knew a few of those would snatch even James's interest from Lily Evans.

"About the next full moon," he said loudly. "I've been thinking."

"_Shhh_," Remus implored, but James, who had, as expected, perked up immediately, threw a smirk in Sirius's direction.

"Was it painful?"

Sirius gave him a light nudge with his elbow but carried on. "I reckon we should leave the Shack."

"_Shhh_," said Remus again. Sirius waved away his concern.

"No one can hear us down here," he scoffed. "Anyway – "

"We must be nearly at the castle," Peter pointed out. Sirius shrugged but lowered his voice.

"Anyway, what d'you reckon?" he asked. "I thought it'd be quite fun to explore the Forest, you know – we're bound to be able to go further in as animals."

"Maybe we'll be able to find those blasted Acromantulas everyone's always insisting live in the Forest," James said with a grin. "Hey, we can feed a few to Moony!"

"_No, thanks_," said Remus firmly. His voice had become rather tight. "Don't you think it's a bit…dangerous running round school grounds?"

"Padfoot and Prongs are pretty big, though," said Peter. As the smallest animal, he should have been the most worried about going into the Forbidden Forest, but it seemed so long as he was clinging to James's antlers or on Sirius's back, he seemed all right.

"Yeah, we can handle you," said James. "Not like you get students wandering around in the middle of the night anyway, is it? Only us," he amended with a quick smirk.

They had reached the end of the tunnel: the back of the fourth-floor mirror was just ahead of them. Remus reached it first: he had the longest legs. But he stopped and turned to face them.

"It still sounds risky."

"Obviously," said James. "That's what makes it fun." He shared a grin with Sirius. But Remus still looked unhappy. Sirius clapped him on the shoulder.

"Look, mate," he said, "we became Animagi for a reason, and it wasn't so you could be cooped up in that Shack. Prongs and I are big enough; we'll keep you in check."

"Besides," James added, "who're you going to run into in the middle of the Forest?"

The slight sagging of Remus's shoulders, as always, gave him away: he could rarely stand up to a combined effort of James and Sirius. Apparently having reached the same conclusion as Sirius, James eased past Remus and pushed on the back of the mirror, which swung open.

"This was cracking work, Padfoot," he said loudly, climbing out of the hole and jumping down into the corridor. Remus followed him out, hushing him, but grinning ear-to-ear.

"The _Three Broomsticks' _cellars!" Peter could hardly conceal his glee as he jumped down after Remus. "It'll be dead easy for the Common Room parties."

"So long as Filch doesn't know about it," said James, his gaze flickering to Sirius, who eased his legs out of the tunnel hole first and jumped down, wiping his hands on his trousers.

"We're safe," he said. "There's no way Filch would've made me clean the mirror during detention if he thought there was a chance I'd find a tunnel." He turned to close the tunnel back up, trying to conceal his grin. He knew it was a particularly good find. They already knew of six other passages to Hogsmeade, four of which Filch knew about and guarded religiously. It was also a more comfortable route than most of the others – it was much wider, almost room-like, and the four of them had walked shoulder to shoulder until the very end, where it narrowed.

"We'd better get going," said Remus. "Don't want Filch to catch us and get suspicious."

Sirius snorted, doubtful that the idiotic caretaker would figure it out merely from their presence, but James merely hummed cheerily and so he allowed his best friend to steer him towards the Gryffindor Tower.

"Y'know," said Peter as they climbed the stairs to the fifth floor, "we need to start writing all this stuff down. I don't think I can even remember all the passages and secret rooms we've found."

James stopped dead in the middle of the staircase. "_Brilliant_, Wormtail," he said. Sirius wrinkled his nose. It was quite rare that Peter came out with anything particularly brilliant, and _writing things down_ did not rank particularly high on Sirius's list of brilliant ideas.

Peter turned around, looking predictably confused. "What?"

"Well, we _can_ write it all down, can't we? We could _make a map _of Hogwarts."

Sirius leaned over the bannister, unable to help the derision seeping into his voice. "And what good would that do us? Wormtail's the only one too stupid to remember where he's going."

"No," said James impatiently. "We could make a real-time map. That tracks what's going on around Hogwarts!"

"Is there even a spell for that?" Peter wrinkled his nose.

"Definitely. There is, isn't there, Moony?"

"There is," said Remus slowly with a small smile, "but it's ridiculously complicated."

James and Sirius exchanged smirks.

"Moony, we became Ani – "

"_SSSHHHH_!" Remus and Peter said together. James and Sirius merely grinned at one another and started up the stairs again.

"We could definitely manage it, though," said James airily as they wandered across the fifth floor corridor. _"Easy_. We could – "

Sirius had stopped listening. In fact, he had stopped walking. He was sure he'd heard something up ahead, and he remained very still for a second, his eyes scanning the corridor. Filch wasn't the type to hide – he liked to show himself as soon as possible, so as to catch students by surprise – but there was definitely _someone_ there.

"We're being watched," he said, interrupting James mid-sentence. "And it's not Filch." He pulled out his wand.

"_Homenum Revelio."_

The curtains at the end of the corridor rustled. Then a dark figure darted out, running in the opposite direction. Sirius and James lunged after it. James reached the figure half a second before Sirius, grabbing hold of the back of the person's robes, which fell back to reveal very greasy black hair.

"I don't believe this," said James. "Snivellus _again?_"

"You'd think he'd have learned after our last little lesson," Sirius growled as James tightened his grip on Snape, who was struggling furiously. The Slytherin spat and Sirius jumped back. "_Disgusting._"

"All right, let's just let him go back to his Common Room." Remus and Peter had caught up with them and Remus was eying them nervously. "He's out past curfew too – he'd be in just as much trouble as us."

Sirius snorted derisively. "If we let him go, he'll just keep sneaking around after us." He jabbed his wand sharply into Snape's ribs.

"He _did _catch us coming back the other night," said Peter, his voice nervous.

Sirius and James rounded on Peter just as Remus said, "_What _other night?"

Whilst Sirius might still think that James was rather too relaxed about Snape's suspicions, he knew James was right to decide that Remus shouldn't know about any of this. But Peter had _never _been able to keep his mouth shut when it came to any of the Marauders.

"_What _other night?" Remus repeated, looking between them.

"You know," Snape hissed, his smirk almost painful, "the other night. _The full moon_."

Remus reeled back as though he'd been slapped, his face draining of colour. Sirius stayed stock still, his wand raised, trying to work out if he ought to be hexing Peter or Snivellus.

"You remember, Lupin," Snape said, still in that slippery voice, "when you were oh-so-conspicuously absent and your little friends went running around all night."

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about," Sirius spat, finally levelling his wand on Snape.

"Oh, I'm almost _sure _I do, Black. Your little friend Lupin is a – "

"_Stupefy!"_ Sirius shouted, before any of them could move. Snape slumped in James's arms, and James let him drop roughly to the ground.

"Are you a bloody idiot?" he demanded, rounding on Sirius, whose eyebrows shot up.

"Are you joking?" he retorted. "Snivellus was going to – "

But they were distracted by a strangled sound. Their heads snapped round to see Remus running away in the opposite direction.

* * *

Remus Lupin might have been a Gryffindor but there were some things of which he was very, very afraid.

His biggest fear was the wolf. Not turning into the wolf, so much, because although he hated that part of himself, he was used to the transformation, terrible and painful though it was. No, he was primarily afraid of the wolf when it _took over_: when he no longer had control over himself and when he might bite or kill another human.

His second biggest fear was Dumbledore. James and Sirius, if they had known, would have scoffed at this because, really, what was so scary about a man so old no one seemed to know his exact age, who insisted on wearing ridiculously patterned robes every day? But Remus's fear was entirely explicable, because if Dumbledore ever found out about the Animagus project and how Remus had led his three friends so horribly astray, Remus would have to face the terrible disappointment in those twinkling blue eyes. Remus was so afraid of this possibility that he'd actually taken to avoiding Dumbledore's eye whenever he accidentally met the Headmaster in the corridor.

But Remus's third biggest fear was not much smaller than his second and that was that one day someone that was not James, Sirius or Peter was going to find out that he was a werewolf.

And it looked like that fear was terrifyingly close to realisation.

Remus ran all the way to Gryffindor Tower and to his dorm as though his life depended on it. In a way, it did. Because he could not face Snape – the terror in his eyes would surely give him away.

If it were not already too late…

When Remus stopped in the dormitory, he was hyperventilating. His hands were shaking, he noticed with some fascination; and he felt hot and cold all at once.

_You know, the full moon._

_You remember, Lupin, when you were oh-so-conspicuously absent…_

_Your little friends went running around… _Merlin. Did he know about the others too?

Remus's stomach clenched painfully. He was going to be sick.

But at that moment footsteps sounded on the stairs and suddenly James, Sirius and Peter tumbled into the room. They were still arguing.

"Who _cares _if we dumped him behind a curtain?"

"You basically just _confirmed _it – "

"Would you rather he'd bloody _said _it?"

"We could've talked our way out of it!" James was arguing, but as he pushed the door shut, he fell into silence as he met Remus's gaze.

"What…what did Snape mean?" Remus hated how his voice shook: how he could not even ask the stupid _question _without betraying how scared he was of the answer. But he held his ground, his eyes flickering between the three of them.

"Well, he bloody _knows_, doesn't he?" said Sirius furiously, glaring at James as Remus's stomach gave a painful lurch. "I _told _him – "

"He _knows_?" Remus interrupted. His usually calm voice came out as a high-pitched squawk, but he barely noticed. James visibly winced.

"Padfoot's exaggerating," he said, shooting Sirius a matching glare. "Snivellus doesn't _know. _He's just guessing."

"A guess that's totally bang-on target!" Remus croaked. It had been everything he feared; he had to make James _understand_, but his heart was pounding so painfully it was difficult even to form coherent sentences. "It's only a matter of time – "

"Exactly what I said," Sirius put in.

"For the last time, you don't understand him like I do!" James ran his hands back through his hair and crossed the room to the window before letting his arms fall back to his side as he turned around to face them. "Look, there's no way he's going to blab when it's only a hunch. If there's one thing Snivellus hates, it's being humiliated – that's why he won't say anything when he risks being wrong."

"Sorry, am I understanding this right? My life is riding on Snape's dislike of being wrong?" It was too much for Remus to handle; he reached out to hang onto his four poster bed. "Prongs!"

"What exactly do you propose we do, then? Scare him into silence? You know just as well as I do that if I hex him into next week, he'll take that as confirmation! And we'll have no way to keep him quiet then!"

James sounded so confident, so self-assured, that it was difficult not to believe him: James had a way of inspiring trust, even when the most incredible things came out of his mouth. And what he was saying made perfect sense, Remus realised, as he sank down onto his bed, still staring at James. They could not have a go at Snape – what if he _said _something to someone? But he _already _knew, Remus thought with dread – or as good as. And they had _no way _to keep his mouth shut.

Merlin. Everyone was going to find out. He was going to be expelled.

He suddenly closed his eyes, unable to look at James anymore, whose hazel eyes betrayed all the sympathy Remus did not want. But, out of nowhere, Peter's voice piped up, though it sounded very small and timid.

"Can't we…I dunno, get him expelled or something?"

_Oh, Merlin. _If only they could. But Remus was not, generally, in the habit of sacrificing others for himself – they could not just get someone else _expelled._ Snape would have to be doing something to merit expulsion; Remus could not going to go as far as framing him, however much he knew it was an easy solution to his problems.

"Brilliant," he heard Sirius breathe, and Remus opened his eyes in alarm. Sirius could not, surely, be taking this seriously? But his friend had started to pace. "He's always trying to sniff around to get us into trouble. And if he's expelled, no one will listen to him even if he _says _something – unknown surname…wand snapped…"

Remus opened his mouth to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that they had no way of getting Severus Snape expelled without dropping themselves in it, but James's eyes were bright and he got in there first.

"D'you know, Wormtail," he said, "this might just work."

"And just how do you propose doing this?" said Remus in an exasperated voice. His chest was still hurting; his senses felt numb. But he was _not _about to allow James and Sirius to make this whole thing worse.

Of course, it was questionable whether it could, in fact, _get _any worse.

"Got to goad him, haven't we?" James started to pace. "Subtly, of course – we don't want to be implicated, so it can't just be an ordinarily duel. We've got to provoke him to do something awful."

"What kind of awful?" Peter asked.

"Got to be Dark Magic, hasn't it?" Sirius replied promptly. "Idiot's up to his eyes in it." His eyes locked with James's again, and Remus had a horrible feeling where this was going.

"We've got to provoke him to curse me," said James. "Really badly."

"If we let him curse you with Dark Magic…mightn't that…" Peter trailed off, apparently not wanting to voice what he was thinking.

"We've only got to provoke him to cast the spell, haven't we?" Sirius scoffed. "Not to actually hit Prongs – so long as there are enough witnesses…"

"It wouldn't be enough, though, would it?" James had started pacing again. "It's got to be serious in order to be taken seriously – "

"Prongs, I'm not letting you get yourself killed for my sake!" Remus jumped to his feet again, his fear forgotten, briefly, in his horror at what his friends were suggesting. Sirius and James started scoffing together.

"He's not going to _kill _me – "

"As if Snivelly's got the guts – "

"Nah, he might do some damage, but Madam Pomfrey'll be able to fix it."

Remus stared, unable to believe the bravado James and Sirius were displaying. "Are you serious? You have no idea what he's capable of – he might maim you, you might lose a hand – "

"Moony's right," said Peter. Remus felt a rush of gratitude towards him – the only other person who appeared to keep their head when James and Sirius got too outlandish in their ambitions. "We've got to protect Moony's secret but it's not worth you putting yourself in danger, Prongs."

"What else do you suggest, Wormtail?" Sirius burst out, rounding on him. "How else are we going to get Snivellus expelled?"

_Oh God_. This could _not _be the only way. It was too cruel – too much to ask Remus to choose between keeping his secret and not allowing James to put himself in danger. He shut his eyes quickly, wondering if he could convince himself that this was some sort of nightmare.

"Look," said James, and Remus opened his eyes warily, "we've just got to set it up so if it looks _really _bad – one of you has got my back, yeah? So I'm not really in any danger." He grinned at Sirius, telling him he'd trust him with his life in a heartbeat. Sirius grinned back, confident, as ever, that they had it all sorted. But they never took _anything _seriously, Remus thought. His head was beginning to hurt. His secret or James. _His life or James's._

James, evidently, though he had made the decision for him. And it would be _so _easy just to cave into his friend, who would do anything to protect Remus's secret.

"You don't know what will happen," said Remus. "What if something goes wrong?" But he was already cracking, and they all knew it.

"It won't," said James firmly. "We'll plan it really carefully – c'mon, Moony, this is our only chance to silence Snape once and for all. _I _don't want him blabbing your secret – do you?"

"No, but I don't want you dead either," Remus mumbled. He sank back down onto his bed with his head in his hands. Sirius put his hand on his shoulder.

"It'll be fine, Moony," he said, sounding as confident as he always did. "We're the masters of planning. Nothing will go wrong."

No, Sirius Black was not in the habit of doubting himself, Remus thought later. But perhaps even he should have realised that a battle plan always looks much simpler on parchment than it ever does in practice.

* * *

**A/N: Please, please take a moment to review and let me know what you think. It is so maddening to see how many people have been reading this without leaving a review – I would love to know what you make of it so far.**


	5. Mounting the Offensive

**A/N: Thanks so much to those who left such kind reviews and I apologise profusely for how long this has taken. I've obsessed over this chapter. My poor partner's had to read it four times in various forms. I've accepted now that this will never be my favourite chapter but there's so much juicy stuff coming up I thought it was best just to press on. I hope you agree. Thanks for your patience.**

* * *

**Chapter Four: Mounting the Offensive**

**24****th**** March 1976**

He could see she was in a bad mood, even as he approached her. Even if the bowed head and hunched shoulders weren't giveaway enough, the ferocity with which she was stabbing her cereal with her spoon spoke of an irritation that should have told any sane person to keep away. But James had never been anything if not a risk-taker, and so instead of staying down his end of the table that morning, he hovered rather nervously above the seat opposite her.

"Er…Evans?"

She gave no sign that she had heard him, her red curls remaining bent over her breakfast. But there was no chance she could not have heard, James realised: she was just ignoring him. His shoulders sagged slightly: he had somehow hoped that overnight she would have forgotten all about their disastrous detention. He considered slinking away, leave her bad mood to wear off, but he caught himself in time. She was angry with _him_, as Remus had helpfully pointedly out repeatedly the night before, and that wasn't going to get better by itself.

He sat down.

"Evans?"

With an audible sigh, Lily Evans lifted her head to look at him. Her bright green eyes were narrowed into a scowl.

"What, Potter?"

Her tone was as sour as her expression and James self-consciously ran a hand through his hair. Lily's gaze travelled up to the wild mess on his head, her eyes narrowing. James dropped his hand quickly.

"I…er…just wanted to say sorry," he said. "For last Friday."

If he hadn't obsessed over this all night, scaring himself with every way it could go, he might have relished the expression of pleasant surprise not even Lily Evans could stifle quick enough.

"Sorry, what did you just say?" she asked. Her scowl had softened somewhat; James felt the back of his neck heating up uncomfortably and he dropped his gaze.

"Sorry," he said. "You know, for the thing with Boot. And for Sirius's song about Sniv…er, Snape on Monday." He caught himself just in time; he risked a look up to see if she'd noticed. But her expression was neutral – she was giving nothing away. He had to try harder, no matter how much humility was going to pain him. "You…er, you were right." He swallowed. "We were being bloody prats. I'm sorry."

The carefully schooled expression Lily had been sporting sagged: it looked as though it was all James's fellow Gryffindor could do to stop her jaw dropping into her cereal. But James couldn't decide if this was positive or negative, so he sat in silence, waiting for her to say something. She watched him for several agonising seconds before she dropped her gaze and picked up her spoon again.

"It's not _me _you owe an apology to," she said coolly.

_Ouch. _James winced but fought on regardless. "I know. I apologised to Boot out in the Entrance Hall about twenty minutes ago." _That_, frankly, had been downright humiliating, but Boot had thankfully been a good sport about it. And Lily's eyebrows had shot up at this news: perhaps it had all been worth it. He pressed on. "But I thought I should…er…say sorry to you too. It put you in an awkward situation, right? And it embarrassed you. So…yeah."

"But Severus – "

James felt like making rude noises every time he heard Snape's first name come out of Lily's mouth, but on this occasion he ignored it, cutting across her.

"I would've got Sirius to apologise to Snape, only you said you hadn't told him about the thing with Peeves." Lily's mouth closed again; James's uncertainty spiked. "But if you'd rather…" He trailed off, more unnerved by the second at Lily's silence. Her expression was unreadable again – he couldn't begin to speculate what she was thinking. _Shit. _This wasn't how he'd imagined it – she'd always _said _something, _anything…_ "Shall I leave?"

She said nothing, which just unnerved James further. Shoulders dropping again in dejection – Merlin, _what _did he have to do to make this right? – he rose to his feet, wondering if he should just steer clear of Lily Evans for the rest of his life.

"Potter." Her voice made him stop: he hovered awkwardly above the seat, hardly daring to draw any hope from the small twitches at the corners of Lily's mouth. "Tell me, Potter," she said, raising her eyes to meet his. "Have you ever apologised for anything in your life?"

James nearly snorted at this, but he forced himself to remain calm, confining his amusement to a small grin. "Yeah. Never where it could be overheard, though."

Her lips gave another twitch at this. "And Black?" she asked. "Will I be receiving the same beautifully composed apology from him?"

James strongly suspected she was poking fun at him. But the mention of Sirius distracted him; his smile dropped. The idea of Sirius apologising was almost laughable – James wasn't sure Sirius had ever contemplated the concept. "Er…"

To his surprise, Lily sat back in her seat and actually laughed – a wonderful, _brilliant _laugh that echoed over the voices of the people around them. "It's all right," she said with a grin. "I can't see Black apologising even if his life depended on it, can you?"

Her amusement was infectious: James felt his mouth pulling into another smile. "Sure it's all right?" he asked, leaning in conspiratorially. "I heard that song, you know. I reckon Sirius ought to apologise just for being crap at rhyming."

Lily snorted another laugh. "That's not a very nice thing to say about your best friend."

James opened his mouth to respond, but at that moment Marlene leaned across from where she was sitting next to Lily. He hadn't even noticed her there – she had been unusually quiet, but perhaps that was entirely to do with the fact that Gideon Prewett was sitting not two spaces down the table. Marlene had never possessed the self-control to keep her mouth shut. She eyed James briefly now, but chose not to comment. "Alice is moaning that Transfiguration's starting in a few minutes."

As Alice started protesting loudly that she would _never _moan about being late for Transfiguration, Lily turned away from James to gather up her bag and textbook. Seizing the opportunity, James darted around the end of the table so that he was standing right in front of her when she stood up. Her shock when she turned around was palpable; she eyed him suspiciously.

"What now?"

_Shit. _Now the moment was upon him, nerves were shaking him; his hand was back in his hair before he knew what he was doing. "Can I walk you to class?"

He was sure she'd say no straight away, but she was silent for a few seconds, her head cocked as she surveyed him. James had the strange sense that he was being weighed up in some way.

"All right," she agreed.

James felt his face split into a grin: he thought he might hug her. Instead he held out his hand. She stared at him in horror. "Potter, I'm not going to hold hands with you, if that's what you're – "

He almost laughed: even _he _was not that optimistic. "Bag, Evans." When she continued to gape at him, he took a step closer and slid his hand under her bag strap, transferring the weight from her shoulder to his hand, and then swinging it over his own bag. "Do you want me to take your textbook?"

"Er…no; not necessary." It was now her who seemed uncertain: she clutched her book to her chest almost possessively. James just grinned at her.

"Shall we?"

"Not going to carry _my _bag, James?" Marlene mocked from behind them.

"Strapping girl like you can manage her own bag," James threw over his shoulder. Admittedly Marlene McKinnon was not in the least bit strapping – though tall, she was very slender – but she was probably the only girl with whom he could have got away with it. Lily snorted as Marlene squawked in protest behind them.

"So you think I'm some weakling?" Lily asked him.

"Nah." He leaned over, voice lowered, trying to ignore the way his heart beat painfully hard when he was so close to her. "I just like you better. But don't tell Marlene. She'll be jealous."

Lily snorted again, recognising the joke. James had known Marlene since they were six, their parents being mutual friends, but the idea of Marlene being jealous was ludicrous: much to the disappointment of Mrs Potter, the relationship between James and Marlene had only ever been platonic.

They arrived at Transfiguration with seconds to spare; Professor McGonagall eyed them sternly as they tumbled through the door. Sirius, Remus and Peter were already in their usual seats, but James slipped behind them to put Lily's bag down on her desk as she sat down. Although he had never planned to go further than this, he found himself unable, suddenly, to stop himself contemplating the empty chair next to her. She looked at him curiously, and he found himself in an agonising moment of hesitation. Should he sit down next to her? Or leave her be – 'leave her wanting more', as Sirius put it?

The decision was made for him very quickly. He felt a sharp yank on the back of his robes, and he fell backwards, down into his usual seat between Sirius and Peter.

"Easy does it, Prongs," said Sirius cheerfully. _Smug git. _James could have hit him.

But when he risked a look over his shoulder, he saw that Lily, though she wasn't looking at him directly, had a small smile playing around her lips. And so it was that when James turned back to whatever Professor McGonagall was writing on the board, he was wearing a smile of his own.

* * *

Lily Evans was not the only one to start the morning in a bad mood, but Severus Snape's would certainly not be lifted by the likes of James Potter.

Severus was always irritable when he hadn't had enough sleep. That morning he was firmly blaming Rowan Nott, who had kept him up half the night with his stupid lecture on poisonous candles. He had been attending such meetings for years – they were all but made compulsory by Slytherin seventh years full of self-importance with no outlet for it but to lord it over the younger members of their own House. But Severus was becoming increasingly bored of them: he had probably read ten times the number of books on Dark Arts that the seventh years had, but he was forced to sit in silence while the seventh years boasted of the certainty of their future success in the Dark Lord's circle.

Severus wanted to shake all of them – Nott especially – by the shoulders and tell them to wake up. It was, unfortunately, still the case that those with certain surnames were welcomed by the Dark Lord with open arms, but it did not mean that His praise did not have to be earned. And if they were stupid (as some of them seemed set on being), death would be the price, whether they belonged to one of the 'Sacred Twenty-Eight' families (unsurprisingly designated by Nott's own great-grandfather) or not.

Severus was used to putting up with this rubbish by now, mostly satisfied with his own realistic outlook and convinced that once they were out of Hogwarts the Dark Lord would recognise his talents regardless of the fact he was named for a drunk Muggle. Still, he thought irritably the next morning, it would have been nice if on this occasion Nott's lecture had not continued into the early hours of the morning. Severus was sure he'd done it on purpose because Severus had been late: he'd only come round from Black's stunner at eleven o'clock.

_Black. Lupin. _Severus had not had time yet to properly dwell on Lupin's satisfyingly shocked reaction to his revelation, but he was surer than he ever had been that his suspicions were correct. The question was: what was he going to do about it?

He was contemplating this as he walked to breakfast the next morning, but it was difficult to think clearly when Mulciber was next to him, boasting loudly, as he was wont to do after the meetings with the seventh years.

"My father and uncle were on a raid just the other night," Mulciber had announced as they strolled down the dungeons corridor towards the Great Hall. "It only took _five minutes _of the Cruciatus Curse to send the old Muggle into insanity – "

It left Severus speechless, frankly, that anyone could be so idiotic as to boast of family crimes – because they _were _crimes to the Ministry, however normalised they appeared to have become to some – in such a loud voice. Worse, there was no way that Mulciber could possibly know this, since his father and uncle had never written to him with details of their activities – indeed, the Dark Lord was unlikely to permit such a thing. But Mulciber was ludicrously proud of his family's connections (social climbers, Avery liked to tell Severus in private) and no doubt had seen some article in the _Daily Prophet _to which he was now adding his own embellishments.

"The father was _begging – _honestly, how pathetic – "

Even though Mulciber was making it up, it occurred to Severus that the whole thing was probably not too far off the mark. Although Severus had done enough research and digging around to know that Muggles were not really the focus of the Dark Lord's campaign, he knew that Muggle-baiting was not discouraged amongst his followers. And he had read enough _Daily Prophet _articles to understand that if the Muggles weren't dead by the end of these activities, they might as well be. Severus had not examined _too _closely how he felt about that, but it seemed to him eminently sensible to practise things on Muggles so that one was very sure of oneself once faced with a stronger, wizarding opponent.

He wouldn't boast of it, though.

"And his wife was bloody _howling _– honestly, you'd never get a witch doing that, would you? Not the proper ones, anyway."

Severus had absolutely no doubt as to what Mulciber meant by 'proper' ones, but he bit his tongue. He had tried to defend Lily a few times, especially in the early years, by pointing out that not _all _Muggle-borns lacked talent, but Mulciber had quite quickly latched onto Severus's sympathies and had been so sinister about it that Severus had given that up a long time ago. It was easier to call them 'Mudbloods', to laugh at Mulciber's jokes, than to put himself – and Lily – in the firing line. Mulciber might have been an idiot at times, but he was a dangerous idiot and Severus preferred not to provoke him.

Luckily, on this occasion, it was Avery who came to the rescue.

"Be quiet, would you?" he said as they entered the Great Hall. "I've got a headache from that wine of Nott's last night. I'm sure he put something in it."

Of course he had – as soon as Severus had raised the goblet to his lips, he had caught the unmistakably whiff of a Traitor potion. Severus was only surprised it had not been used before. He had nothing to fear from it, but he knew Nott's strength was not potion brewing and had no desire to experience the aftereffects of a badly made brew, so he had emptied the liquid discretely into a third year's goblet when he'd had the chance. Evidently, Avery, who paid only cursory attention in Potions at best, had not noticed what Severus had. No wonder he had a headache.

Still, Severus remained silent as he slid into a seat at the Slytherin table; Avery never took kindly to insinuations that he had missed something. He helped himself to sausages and eggs, only half-listening to a debate Avery and Marcus Burke had started about the benefits of learning Defence Against the Dark Arts as his gaze, as usual, wandered over to the Gryffindor table, seeking out the familiar flash of dark red hair. He found Lily quickly, sitting next to McKinnon, though her shoulders were hunched over and she wasn't talking to anyone: a sure-fire sign she wasn't in a very good mood. Mornings, really, had never been Lily's thing – persuading her to meet with him before lunchtime at home was a real trial – but perhaps he could find some way of cheering her up.

He was about to look away – Burke had made some comment he disagreed with and he opened his mouth to say so – but at that moment a wiry figure with dark messy hair slid into the seat opposite Lily and Severus's words died on his tongue. _Potter. _He _hated _it when that smarmy git spoke to Lily. Potter had the whole bloody school wrapped around his little figure, and even though Lily could usually be counted upon to put Potter in his place, whenever the Gryffindor sidled up to Severus's friend he always felt a flicker of fear that she, too, might fall for his charm.

He tried to push the feeling down, but found he could hardly hear what Avery was saying as his gaze fixated on the Gryffindor table. Lily's back was to the Slytherin table, but it didn't look at all like her conversation with Potter was going in the usual way. Potter was grinning like an idiotic jack 'o' lantern; Lily had straightened up a little as if her bad mood had lifted somewhat. Potter said something; Lily sat back in her seat, her shoulders shaking.

Was she _laughing?_

"Hurry up, Snape, we've got Charms in a few," Avery said next to him, nudging him sharply with his elbow. The other Slytherins were standing up; Severus realised dimly that the Hall was already quite empty. Lily, too, had stood up, but Potter darted around the table; offered his hand.

He wanted to hold her hand! Severus thought wildly, but a second later Potter was taking Lily's bag from her and had fallen jauntily into step beside her, making some idiotic comment that made Lily laugh again. _Laugh. _She found him _amusing. _Not to laugh _at, _either, but to laugh _with._

It took all of Severus's self-control not to throw the knife he was holding at Potter's head.

"Come _on_; we'll be late," said Avery, with such forcefulness that Severus's attention snapped immediately from Lily to his House-mates, who were watching him impatiently. He pushed back his bench, grabbing his belongings as they sighed and tutted and he glowered. It wouldn't do to let them know who he had been watching, but it burned every time they thought him an idiot: like when he had told them he was having remedial Transfiguration classes when he had really been meeting Lily to study.

Still, he could not stop himself from glancing over his shoulder as they walked up the stairs, to where Lily and Potter were strolling towards the Transfiguration corridor. She was clutching her textbook to her chest; her face turned towards Potter (whose hands couldn't seem to stay out of his hair); and even though she was obviously attempting not to look too interested, her eyes were sparkling and before she could help herself, it seemed, her mouth split into another wide smile at something Potter said.

Severus had to force himself to keep moving up the stairs; to stop himself from throwing himself between Lily and Potter, from shouting at Lily to remember how much she hated his stupid smirks, how arrogant Potter was – Merlin forbid, at that moment he was so wound up he might tell her how _he, _Severus, felt…

"In the name of the Dark Lord, Snape, if you don't hurry up I'll curse you myself," said Mulciber irritably. "What are you staring at anyway?"

He craned his neck towards where Severus had been staring, but his interest jerked Severus out of his reverie: he snapped his head back round to his friends and took several steps up the stairs. He did _not _want to get Mulciber started on his friendship with Lily that morning.

"Nothing," he said hastily. "Are we going or what?"

* * *

_I still think _I _should be the one to ask her._

_Get over yourself, Prongs. She doesn't like you THAT much. Not yet, anyway._

_What makes you think she'll say yes to Moony, then?_

_She likes Moony. _

_Shut it, Wormtail. I was asking Padfoot. _

Unable to think of anything wittier, James scribbled the last line and shoved it back towards Peter as Professor Sprout turned her back to tend to her Dancing Dahlias. There couldn't be more than five minutes until the end of the lesson; having spent most of it outside transferring Bulbous Bay Trees from pots to the ground, they were now supposed to be writing up a report they would finish for the next lesson. It looked like James was going to be doing a lot of homework: he'd spent most of the last twenty minutes having a silent argument with his friends about their lunch plans. Even Sirius was refusing to side with him.

He snatched back the parchment before Peter could reply and started scrawling again.

_You weren't there in the Great Hall. I made her laugh. More than once._

_Right proper Romulus the Romantic, aren't you? _came Sirius's swift and sarcastic reply. Furious, James started scribbling again –

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Remus muttered. Before James could stop him, he leaned across his workbench and tapped the redhead in front of him sharply on the shoulder. Lily whipped around, looking so thoroughly relieved to be distracted from her Herbology report that James nearly sniggered in spite of himself.

"What?" she whispered.

"We're having lunch outside," Remus said in a low voice. Luckily Sprout was still tending to her Dahlias and didn't appear to hear him – she did not take kindly to talking in her class. "We were wondering if you three wanted to join us."

Lily's eyebrow twitched and James knew she was dying to raise it sceptically. Instead her eyes flickered in his direction before settling back on Remus. "We were going to have lunch with our friends in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. You know – Dorcas Meadowes and that crowd."

"Bring them along," said Remus immediately. Lily still looked rather doubtful and he smiled. "It's up to you, of course. But we thought this sort of weather ought to be appreciated in better style than by planting Bay Trees."

James would never get over how Remus was always able to apply just the right amount of pressure without making it appear at all obvious that he was doing so. He'd invited Lily's friends; he'd made the weather seem appealing; he'd even made it appear a sort of rebellion against Herbology. He knew before Lily had even finished consulting with Alice and Marlene that she would agree.

"We probably need to run up to the dormitory to get our cloaks," she said in a low voice, turning back to Remus. "It's a bit chilly. And we need to let the others know. Can you get enough food for everyone?"

"Of course."

"Thanks." Lily smiled brightly and turned back to her report. James was so focused on staring at the back of her head that he didn't realise Sirius had stolen their piece of parchment before his best friend threw it back at him.

_See? She likes Moony best._

"Shove off, Padfoot," James muttered, but it was only half-hearted. He was too elated by the prospect of a picnic with Lily Evans.

* * *

Severus had had a great deal of practice in hiding things, but it was a great struggle to maintain a bored expression during double Charms that morning while his thoughts were all over the place. He had not spoken to Lily in a few days, he realised – not since Potions on Friday. She had been mysteriously elusive all weekend, and though he usually saw her on Tuesday evenings to study, he had skipped it the night before to spy on Potter and his friends. He regretted it now. Had he somehow missed all the time she was spending with Potter? Had she meanwhile forgotten about Severus?

He was going to talk to her, he thought, and make her remember what an arrogant idiot Potter was. He made up his mind to grab her at lunch.

But Lily was not at lunch. In fact, hardly any of the Gryffindor fifth years were – McKinnon and Hornwick were absent, as were, much to Severus's disgust, Potter and his gang. His thoughts immediately jumped to the possibility that they were all together, but he pushed the fear angrily away: it was the first nice weather they'd had in a long time and there were a number of empty seats around the Hall. But anxiety prickled at the back of his mind, and he wasn't convinced. He had to make sure. So he bolted down his lunch quickly, ignoring Avery, who wanted to copy his Potions homework before class, and dashed outside, scanning the lawn for a flash of copper red hair.

He found her in an instant. They were not difficult to spot – there must have been ten of them by the lake. He squinted in the sun. Most of the students were Lily's friends and were lounging on the grass, lying or sitting on their cloaks, but Lily was on her feet, with two figures that Severus realised with a jolt were Potter and Lupin. They had one of Lily's hands each and appeared to be attempting to drag her towards the water. She was shrieking and resisting, but laughing so hard it really lost any of its effect, and no one watching would have believed that she wasn't enjoying herself.

Severus felt sick.

"She's something, isn't she?"

Severus whipped round at the voice, his hand already plunging into his pocket as he came face to face with Sirius Black. Severus had thought he was by the lake too, but now he realised he had only been looking for Lily and Potter and he had skimmed over everyone else. _Careless_.

"You stay away from her, Black," Severus spat, levelling his wand between Black's eyes. Arrogant Gryffindor that he was, Black merely smirked.

"You should know by now it's not _me _who's interested, Snivellus." He tilted his chin over Severus's shoulder. Loath to tear his eyes from Black, Severus kept his wand trained on the Gryffindor and turned his head quickly to see what he was referring to. He was just in time to see Lily wrench her hand away from Lupin and throw herself at Potter, darting around him and grabbing him from behind to use as a sort of human shield. The look of satisfaction on Potter's face was enough to make Severus want to punch something.

"She seems quite keen on him too, doesn't she?"

Severus never would have admitted it to _Black, _of all people, but it was undeniably true that Lily was not pushing Potter away – she was _voluntarily touching him_, for Merlin's sake– and her laughter could be heard even from where he was standing. He wracked his brains, trying to think of the last time she had laughed like that with him and drew a blank. Panic rose in his throat. It was true they seemed to be arguing more these days, but it hadn't _really _been that long, had it?

"She'd never go out with _him_," he spat, rounding on Black and raising his wand higher, an inch from Black's eyebrows. Black merely reached out, snatched the wand from Severus's grasp so fast Snape hardly had time to blink, and threw it as far as he could across the lawn.

"We'll see," he said, and pushed past Snape to saunter towards his friends by the lake.

Severus walked several steps to retrieve his wand; he picked it up from the grass and rubbed it on his robes. Black had joined the group, and was now busy helping Lupin push both Potter and Lily into the lake. Lily was shrieking again and clutching hold of Potter, who looked far too pleased about the whole thing.

Severus clutched his wand tightly. The urge to curse Potter into next week was almost overwhelming. It would be _so easy…_

Except it wouldn't be. Because he was bound to hit Lily too.

It was with great regret that he turned away, back towards school, pocketing his wand. But as a great shout of laughter rose up from behind him – laughter that could only belong to that bespectacled buffoon – Severus made up his mind that Potter would _not _be allowed to get away with this. Potter got _everything – _the Quidditch skill, the admirers, the good marks he _certainly _didn't earn…

He would not be allowed to have Lily too.

* * *

But if Snape hoped to be able to speak to Lily in Potions, he was to be sorely disappointed. Lupin, who had seemed perfectly healthy at lunchtime, was mysteriously absent during the afternoon double period (though Severus _knew _it wasn't a full moon). Potter somehow persuaded McKinnon to partner with him, leaving Lily to work with Alice Hornwick rather than Snape. It was all too rotten luck for words.

He watched them all, fuming, only marginally placated by the fact Potter and McKinnon had to be the most disastrous Potions pairing he'd ever seen. Naturally, Snape thought scornfully, Potter found the whole thing hilarious: hardly able to contain his laughter when their potion blew sky high, sending the other Gryffindors ducking for cover, even unperturbed that he was now covered in remnants of Draught of Living Death. Or what was _supposed _to be Draught of Living Death, anyway.

"_Snape_ – honestly, are you going to do any of this, or do I have to do it all?"

Avery's impatient voice beside him made Snape turn his head, one eyebrow raised, withering retort already on the tip of his tongue. But then he saw Avery's hand hovering over the potion, frog guts clutched in one gloved hand.

"_Watch it_," he hissed, grabbing Avery's arm and forcing him to drop the guts on the chopping board. "You fool. They're not supposed to be added for another twenty minutes."

"How was I supposed to know?" Avery demanded, looking very sullen. He did not like to be ticked off.

"It's written in black and white in front of you," said Snape impatiently, peering into their cauldron. It was lucky he'd started to pay attention: Avery had clearly been on the brink of wrecking their potion to the same extent as Potter's. As it was, it would not be brilliant, but perhaps it could be rescued… He reached for the mandrake juice still sitting on the bench.

"You know I'm no good at Potions," Avery was complaining beside him. "It's not my fault if you're too busy watching a Mudblood to help me."

Snape gritted his teeth but said nothing: protesting that Lily did not deserve to be called a Mudblood would only provoke Avery further. Instead he said: "I wasn't watching Evans; I was watching Potter."

"_That_ blood traitor?" Avery said. He sat back down as Snape started stirring their potion, adding in drops of Mandrake juice as he went. But Avery's words made Snape look up sharply. He had never heard Avery call Potter that before – as far as most of the Slytherins seem to be concerned, Potter was a prat but he was a pureblood and that made him largely beyond reproach.

"What makes you say that?" he asked carefully.

Avery's face twisted in disgust. "Haven't you seen the way he's been fawning over Evans today?"

"It put me right off my lunch." Mulciber had turned around; his black eyes flashed in his thick-set features. "I don't know how he can stand to touch it personally. It's a miracle he's not turned Mudblood himself."

Snape kept himself from rolling his eyes and pointing out that blood purity was, in fact, not contagious: if it were, perhaps he'd be treated with a bit more respect in his own House. He continued stirring the potion.

"The question is," Mulciber said, "what are we going to do about it?"

"_Do _about it?" Snape asked sharply, his gaze snapping up to look at his fellow Slytherin.

"Obviously," Jugson drawled, turning around from where he had been working next to Mulciber. "Can't just have Potter running after Mudbloods. It's disgusting. He needs to be reminded of his place. And _she _needs to be reminded of hers."

This last sentence sent such an icy shiver down Snape's back that it was all he could do to keep himself from visibly shuddering. "Don't be fools," he said, trying to sound nonchalant though his heart was hammering. "You can't do anything in Hogwarts – especially touching Dumbledore's precious Gryffindors." He didn't care one iota about Potter, but if they touched _Lily_…she was powerful and quick, but against the likes of Mulciber…

"Of course we can," scoffed Avery, whose father was on the governing board of Hogwarts and who was therefore unlikely to be expelled even if he was caught with his wand over Potter's unconscious body. But now Marcus Burke had turned around and Burke, whilst a thug with the best of them, could usually be counted on to say something sensible.

"Snape's right," he said. "It's nice to think you'd be able to give Potter and that Mudblood what they deserve but you'd never get away with it. Not without being sure Potter wouldn't blab."

"Don't talk rubbish," Mulciber said sharply. "Snape's only saying that so we don't have a go at his precious Mudblood."

Snape's blood turned to ice, the way it always did whenever Mulciber latched onto his friendship with Lily. Of all of them, Mulciber was the really nasty one: Mulciber would be the one Snape would be most afraid of exposing Lily to. Brought up by his father and uncle, both already indoctrinated into the Dark Lord's circle, if Mulciber was to be believed, Mulciber's knowledge of Dark Arts was almost as rich as Snape's and appeared to have no appreciation of when to use them. A Slytherin first-year had borrowed Mulciber's quill without asking the previous week and had been rewarded with a Blinding Curse that, luckily, one of the seventh years present had known how to undo, else it might have been permanent. Mulciber's school record was littered with incidents such as this – or, at least, it would have been if any of the Slytherins had snitched on him. But Slytherins did not tell on their own – not unless they could see something in it for them, and what would be in it for them but Mulciber's wrath and vengefulness?

But Snape was usually quite adept at fending off Mulciber's interest in his friendship with Lily – and Avery's too. Merlin knew he'd had enough practice.

"Of course not," he said. "Else I'd be telling you to curse Potter all you wanted, wouldn't I?" Inwardly, he was cursing Potter himself – to hell and back. If Mulciber hurt Lily because Potter was showing too much interest in her…

But that would be the outcome unless Snape did something about it – for as he twisted around a fraction of an inch, he saw that Lily was now helping Potter to fix his potion, a broad grin on her face and a satisfied smirk on Potter's. No, Potter was not going to back off, and that was only going to bring Mulciber's and Avery's fury down on him and Lily.

"You should be adding the frog intestines now," Slughorn announced from the front of the class. "I'll be coming round to inspect your potions shortly – and giving you an estimated grade. If it's not a passing grade, I'll be requiring you to do it again." He grinned broadly and wagged his fat finger, as though this was some great joke. Snape grimaced, turning hurriedly back to his potion and peering at it. Perhaps he could get away with adding the frogs guts in five minutes…

Attention sufficiently diverted from the problem of Potter, Snape pushed the issue to the back of his mind, determined to examine it later and come up with some sort of a plan.

* * *

Naturally, James Potter himself was completely oblivious to the fact he had been the topic of less than pleasant conversation during their Potions class. His mind was focused on more important things.

"I still say I should've asked Evans to partner with me," he complained as he entered the fifth-year dormitory. He threw his bag onto his bed from the doorway before collapsing onto Sirius's four poster.

"_Oi_," said Sirius, throwing himself on top of his best friend, who groaned under the weight.

"Padfoot…weigh…a ton…"

"All right, there, skinny boy?" Sirius asked with a grin, digging his elbow into James's back.

Remus sniggered from where he was lying (having skived off Potions for the last two hours) and Peter sat on the edge of his own bed, setting his bag down at his feet.

"Now, listen up, you skinny git," said Sirius, as James wheezed underneath him. "Evans isn't stupid. If you're too keen and all over her, she's going to smell a rat. And it won't be Wormtail for once."

"_Hey."_

"Sorry, mate," said Sirius, with an apologetic look in Peter's direction. "But you've acted like a right and proper prat in front of her for the whole year, so if you're suddenly on your best behaviour, she's going to _wonder why_. Now do you want to get the girl or not?"

"I thought the whole point of this was to help Moony, not get Prongs a girlfriend," said Peter.

"Course it is," said Sirius, shifting his weight so that James spluttered further. "But none of this is going to work unless Evans will say yes to stag boy here when he asks her to Hogsmeade."

"You really think that'll tip Snivellus over the edge?" Peter leaned forward, his excitement palpable.

"Only thing we know that will," said Sirius cheerfully. "We've just got to make sure we've wound Snivellus up enough beforehand so when Prongs finally does ask her to Hogsmeade – obviously near McGonagall cos she's the strictest – Snivelly snaps." He shifted his weight again and James gasped. "Only if this idiot gets ahead of himself, Evans will think he's a massive prat and won't say yes to him."

James wheezed something incoherent.

"What's that, Prongs?"

With a grunt, James extracted his arms from underneath him and shoved Sirius off before rolling off the end of the bed and onto his feet.

"I _said_ that if I'm dead from suffocation she won't say yes either."

"Hmm." Sirius rolled over so he was lying on his side. "You're just lucky you've got us here, mate. And it's worth our while to help you win over Evans."

Remus cleared his throat. "I'd just like to go on record as saying – "

"That you think this is a stupid idea, Moony. Yeah, you've said," Sirius interrupted. "But we went over and over this last night. How else are we going to get Snivelly expelled?"

"We could just _not _get him expelled," said Remus, frowning.

James straightened up from where he was bent over, regaining his breath. "What, so he can tell the school about your furry little secret? No _way."_ He leaned against Sirius's bed post. "Look, we've got it all worked out, right? You three will have my back when Snivelly does get all upset."

"I don't know why you even think Snape's stupid enough to curse you in front of a teacher," Remus muttered, shaking his head. For all his complaining, however, he'd already gone along with it – from pushing James and Lily together (which he would have done for James anyway) to bunking off Potions that afternoon. James thought it was probably due to the level of forcefulness with which he and Sirius had defended this plan all last night: they had thought of everything, from keeping Remus out of it as far as possible so that Snape's attention would not be drawn to him, to contingency plans should Lily not be quite as charmed by James as they'd hoped (because, they all agreed, he had not been too successful to date). Remus's acquiescence was also undoubtedly borne of the stark fact that they had no other realistic choice.

But he was still watching James and Sirius unhappily now, his eyebrows creased into a deep frown. "How do you know he'll curse you the way you want?"

"He won't be able to _help _himself, Moony," said James with a grin. "That's what's so brilliant about it."

"And Evans won't be able to help _herself_ once we're through with her," said Sirius slyly, lightening the mood and earning himself three groans and a pillow to the head from Peter.

* * *

The girls' dorm might have been much tidier than the boys', but the girls' entrance to their bedroom was no less chaotic: Marlene had fallen onto the closest bed straight away, kicking off her shoes so hard that one flew into the wall and the other narrowly missed Lily's head as she came through the door. Lily, for her part, dumped her bag in the middle of the floor before collapsing back-first onto Alice's bed.

"_Hey_, you've got your own bed!" Alice said.

"But I smell like frog guts and the Draught of Living Death," Lily said, rolling around on Alice's bed as if by rubbing off the stench onto the sheets this would somehow endear her to her friend. "I don't want _my _bed to smell."

"Charming," said Alice, but she fell onto her bed next to Lily, propping herself up on the pillows and stretching her legs out in front of her. "I know you don't like Potions, Lily, but that was a good lesson. For once I was working with someone who could actually brew."

"Speak for yourself," said Marlene from where she was lying. "James is even worse at Potions than I am, and that's saying something. I am _never _partnering with him again."

"Bad luck, Marls," Alice sang. "I'm not letting Lily go for anything."

"You'll have to," said Marlene. She half-sat up, propping her upper body up onto her elbows so she could see them. "Lupin'll be back next lesson. Though _Merlin _knows where he went off to. He was all right at lunch."

"He's always ill," said Alice. She paused. "Maybe he's got some sexy disease and he's dying…"

Lily snorted from where she lay near Alice's stomach. "What's sexy about disease?"

"What's sexy about _Lupin_, more like," Marlene muttered. "He's too bloody _nice_. And half the time he looks like he's suffering from the world's worst hangover."

"Hey, Lily fancied him for a bit, don't forget!" Alice reminded her with a grin. Lily groaned and covered her face with her hands.

"Am I _ever _going to live that down?" she moaned. "I'm never telling you two about my crushes again."

"You don't need to, Evans," said Marlene with a sly grin. "It's pretty obvious who you like."

It was Lily's turn to prop herself up on her elbows. "Who?"

"James! Obviously!" Marlene cackled as Lily covered her face with her hands.

"I _don't _fancy Potter!" she said, her face hot.

"Come on, Evans, you might've been shrieking like a banshee, but we could all see how much you liked clinging onto him," said Marlene. She was grinning, evidently enjoying herself. Lily twisted round to look at Alice in despair.

"Alice! Tell her she's barmy!"

But Alice looked shifty. "Phyllis asked me if you two were a couple at one point, Lil."

"If we were a…?" Lily spluttered, looking between her friends in bewilderment, but a feeling of guilt was already creeping up on her – because she _had _enjoyed James's company that day, hadn't she? He hadn't been obnoxious once – more than that; he'd been witty and charming and they'd had lots of fun at lunch. And although she'd initially clung onto James out of determination not to be thrown into the lake, she'd found she'd actually quite _liked _the close proximity – the heat radiating from his body and the smell of something indecipherable but _nice _and undeniably James.

"Merlin's cracked toenail," she said, falling onto her back again. "I _can't _fancy James Potter."

"I thought you already did a bit," said Alice. She reached down to play with Lily's hair. She was always lamenting her whispy, mousy-brown hair and comparing it to Lily's fiery curls. "Remember? If he asked you out you were going to say you would if he stopped being a total toerag."

That was true. Lily rubbed her face with one hand. "But he wasn't a toerag today. Was he? It's bloody difficult to remember to dislike him when he's not being a prat."

"Good point," said Marlene. "Why _wasn't _he being a git?"

They were all silent for a few moments before Alice let out a sudden giggle; both Lily and Marlene stared at her.

"Sorry," she said, taking her hand away from her mouth. "It's just it's obvious, isn't it? His friends have taken control. Remember in Transfiguration, when Sirius forced him to sit with them, when he was going to sit next to Lily? And it was Remus who invited us for lunch."

There was a split second while Lily and Marlene contemplated this, before they let out identical snorts.

"Hilarious," said Marlene, wiping an imaginary tear from her eye. "Even his friends think he's incompetent."

"I think it's sweet he's trying so hard," Alice defended, but her round face was lit up by a smile.

"But why _now?"_ Lily asked. "He's been an idiot for months." But perhaps she didn't really need to ask – because hadn't it only been yesterday that she had lost her temper with him, and told him he needed to grow up? Wasn't it entirely feasible he'd gone back to the dormitory and told his friends, who had decided to take him in hand? And so maybe…maybe she'd found a way to persuade him to stop being a toerag before he'd ever asked her out. Maybe she wouldn't _have _to turn him down after all.

"I thought he must be up to something this morning, you know," said Marlene. She lifted a hand to inspect her nails. "James never apologises. But I really think he is just on his best behaviour."

"Long may it continue," Lily murmured. There were calls of 'here, here' from Alice and Marlene before they moved onto the less controversial topic of their friend Winnie Ethelberger's new haircut.

But Lily's mind remained lingered on James Potter. And the possibility that he might just turn out to be decent.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading and don't forget to review! Next chapter will be a MUCH shorter wait, I promise!**


	6. The Art of Diplomacy

**A/N: Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who reviewed/favourited the last chapter; you totally made my week. In answer to one particular review: in line with canon, the 'Willow Incident' will take place in fifth year, before the events of Snape's Worst Memory.**

* * *

**Chapter Five: The Art of Diplomacy**

**27****th**** March 1976**

Severus thought it would get better, but it didn't. It got worse.

He'd been under the impression that he hadn't seen much of Lily recently, but suddenly she seemed to be everywhere, with her beautiful laugh and her radiant smile. And Potter was never far behind – performing some idiotic joke with Black, offering to carry her books, messing up his _stupid _hair to give a windswept look Severus could never hope to achieve. He'd actually tried it, on Friday night, but his hair had remained stubbornly limp and lank, before Severus had tried to charm it and had ended up looking like he'd stuck his fingers into a Muggle plug socket. He hadn't quite managed to fix it before his dorm mates had come in. Avery had nearly wet himself laughing.

It was just so _unfair. _Potter was good at _everything _and everyone, with the exception, perhaps, of some of the Slytherins, couldn't get enough of him. Severus had never considered himself so pathetic as to be jealous of James Potter, but it dawned on him, as he stood in front of the bathroom mirror comparing his skinny white chest with what he imagined to be Potter's Quidditch-toned body, that jealous was precisely what he was. The thought had made him want to yell and smash up the whole dorm, but instead he had simply leaned, scowling and shivering, against the mirror, wondering what had changed.

He knew. Of course he knew. It had never mattered how clever or likeable Potter was, because _Lily _had never liked him. But however much Severus had hoped that that first day had been a fluke and that Lily would snap out of it, he had seen her slightly shy smile and the way her eyes sparkled as she spoke to Potter and he knew he'd been wrong. What a bloody _fool _he'd been, to think that Lily wouldn't be blinded by Potter's charm like every other damned person in the school!

It had only been a few days but it seemed like an eternity, he thought as he sat in the dungeons on Saturday night, ignoring those around him and brooding on the fact that today had been Potter's birthday. As he sat listening to another pointless lecture Severus could have recited backwards in his sleep, Lily was up in the Gryffindor Common Room enjoying the festivities her House were no doubt holding for their star Chaser. She'd even given Potter a _present. _Severus knew – in fact, the whole stupid _school _knew – because Potter had made a fool of himself thanking Lily in such an exaggerated fashion that even his friends had mocked him. Lily had blushed a deep, dark red that made Severus's blood boil. All for a bloody box of chocolates.

It was enough to make anyone sick.

And it seemed to be all he could think about: it was occupying all his thoughts during the day and keeping him awake at night, creeping into his dreams even when he managed to fall asleep. If only, Severus thought resentfully as he glanced around the small room the Slytherins used for these lectures, Nott had allowed _him _to give this lecture: that would have distracted him. He could have given the lecture: all the seventh years' materials were derived from a collection of books Severus had read cover to cover twice and more besides. But he had offered to give a lecture once before and Nott had looked at him with such pitying contempt that Severus's cheeks still burned angrily thinking about it. He had resolved never to offer again, and so he was stuck obsessing over Lily and James Potter while Nott droned on at the front.

At least everyone else seemed to be oblivious to the fact Severus's thoughts were on anything but the development of Dark curses. In fact, several others looked miles away – and not, Severus thought scathingly, because they could afford to, as he could. Jugson – who, frankly, had trouble stringing two written sentences together – actually had his eyes closed, while several of the third years, the youngest present, looked like they were desperately trying to stay focused on concepts that were well beyond them.

Burke, on the other hand, looked sharp and alert, as did Mulciber – a sure occurrence whenever anything particularly dark was being discussed – but both of them were watching Nott intently, ignoring their distracted dorm mate behind them. Avery, somewhat surprisingly, was actually making notes – no doubt because he saw this as an opportunity, finally, to match Severus's skill in creating hexes and curses.

_Fine chance of that, _Severus thought. _He _had been developing such spells for years: it took imagination, patience and a deep appreciation for how Dark Magic worked in order to achieve any results. Avery, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, could not wait for anything: he expected everything to appear at his fingertips and became instantly restless if he had to put in even a small amount of effort.

Satisfied that the people around him were well distracted from Severus in some way or another, Severus sank back into the back of his seat, his thoughts returning to Lily. He wondered what she was doing at that moment. He had never, of course, been to a Gryffindor party, but he had heard enough from Lily to provide enough furnishings for his imagination: probably she was perched on the edge of a deep red settee, sipping Butterbeer and laughing with her friends – or perhaps at one of Potter's stupid jokes – while he, Severus, was slouched on a hard chair in the third of these pointless meetings this week…

"-And it's about time someone did something about Potter fawning over that Mudblood; it's a disgrace."

He had not been paying attention. But at Potter's name, Severus suddenly sat bolt upright and had said, "What?" before he could stop himself. A few people around him tittered: the animosity between Severus and Potter was well known. Severus ignored them, his heart hammering. He had heard Potter's name in conjunction with 'Mudblood', and there was only one person of that description that they could mean…

"You must have noticed," said Rabastan Lestrange a little impatiently. Although Nott – considered by most to be the most superior in blood terms of the seventh years – gave the appearance of being in charge of these gatherings, it was really Lestrange who controlled them. Also a seventh year pureblood, he was sharper than his older brother had ever been, and no less cruel. He was not someone to get on the wrong side of. He eyed Severus coldly now, his blue eyes hard. "Potter's been all over that Evans filth."

"Careful, that's Snape's Mudblood you're talking about," came Burke's sly voice from in front of Severus. Severus felt like whipping out his wand and hexing the back of Burke's head. But perhaps he should have expected it: Burke never missed an opportunity to get in a dig at anyone.

"You're not still going around with that muck, are you, Snape?" Wilkes, a sixth year with far too much arrogance for Severus's liking, looked amused, though the dangerous edge to his voice made it sound more like a threat than a question.

Severus ignored him. "The fifth years discussed this the other day," he said. "We agreed nothing could be done under Dumbledore's nose. Potter's father's a school governor, for a start." It left an unpleasant taste in his mouth to say it – he would have liked nothing better than to have set the whole of Slytherin on Potter's smirking face – but he knew he could not behave too protectively of Lily alone, lest he raised his fellow House-mates' suspicions.

"Well, obviously, it's not _Potter_ we'd be teaching the lesson to," Lestrange drawled. Severus's blood turned to ice. Somehow it had never occurred to him that they would blame Lily rather than Potter. But of course they would – because Potter's misdemeanour was a mere transgression, whereas Lily's, in trying to attract a pureblood, as they saw it, was tantamount to treason. Severus hated Lestrange at that moment, with his sneer and blood that made him think he was entitled to do as he pleased. But he was aware, somewhere deep inside him, that he hated Potter even more: _he _was the one going after Lily; _he _was the one making her a target, with no thought for anyone but himself. The thought made Severus want to storm up to Gryffindor Tower and blast James Potter into pieces.

"We should make an example of Evans," Mulciber spat. "Send a message that Mudbloods can't get away with this."

Severus said nothing – what _could _he say, without making it look like he was protecting Lily? Luckily, Burke swooped in instead – though he liked to watch others squirm, and was no doubt enjoying Severus's discomfort, he was never stupid.

"Let's be serious," he said. "It's a nice idea but, like Snape said, Dumbledore would never tolerate it."

"Who cares about that Muggle-loving idiot?" asked Avery.

"No one here," Burke returned sharply, "but not all of us have dads on the governing board, Avery."

"_Enough."_ The bickering, which had started to resonate in low murmurs across the small room, ceased immediately at Lestrange's commanding tone. His narrow eyes surveyed the room, and Severus watched him worriedly, trying to keep his face blank while his heart hammered so hard it threatened to burst out of his ribcage. The seventh years would call the shots: if they wanted to make Lily pay, the rest of them would be expected to fall into line; if they decided to leave her alone, Lily would be safe.

"We wait," Lestrange announced eventually. "Potter's all over her but he's not actually done anything about it. Any message we sent now might not be clear enough; he isn't quite a blood traitor yet. No, we wait until the opportune moment."

Rabastan Lestrange had a frustrating habit of using vague phrases without defining them and typically he did not now move to explain when the opportune moment might be. Perhaps, most likely, he did not know himself. Certainly it seemed that he was waiting for something to happen – for Potter to make some move that would make his allegiance obvious. And though Lestrange would not be _too _afraid of expulsion, being so well connected, he would no doubt want to ensure, if possible, that the teachers would not find out who the culprits were.

_Right_, Severus thought, his heart slowing down somewhat as Nott dismissed them all and chairs started to scrape back and murmurings rose around him. _So she's safe for the moment. _But it would not take much, he realised – Lestrange must have meant that he was waiting for Potter to actually go out with Lily, or to be caught kissing her, or _something… _The thought made Severus's stomach churn: _surely _Lily wouldn't allow it…! But he couldn't be sure – not the way she had been behaving. And if she _did _go out with him, he would be clinging onto the thin hope that Lestrange simply did not want the aggravation of being caught cursing Lily.

"Coming, Snape?" Rosier asked beside him.

Severus nodded mutely. He _had _to talk to her, he realised: he had to make her see sense. She _couldn't _go out with Potter.

Severus's abilities in the Dark Arts might outstrip the knowledge of the idiots around him by miles, but Lestrange alone knew enough to cause Lily some very serious damage. Combine him with Nott or Mulciber, and Severus did not like to think of the consequences.

_Curse _James Potter and his self-centred arrogance, Severus thought furiously as he followed his House mates out of the concealed entrance to the room. He'd make James Potter pay for this. And if Lily got hurt because of him… Severus's hand twitched towards his pocket before he gave himself a mental shake.

Lily first. Then he'd deal with James Potter and his bloody hair.

* * *

**28****th**** March 1976**

By all accounts, James should have been feeling pretty pleased with himself. The plan was going pretty well, even by Sirius's critical count: he'd carried Lily's bag to lessons three times in three days; he'd partnered her in Charms and impressed her with his knowledge of Colour-Changing Charms (derived entirely from a rather brilliant prank they'd played in second year); and the day before she'd given him a birthday present. She'd danced with him at his party. Not even Peter pointing out that the chocolates weren't even all that good should have been able to bring James down from his high.

And yet on Sunday morning he woke up feeling distinctly _off. _Initially he put it down to Sirius pouring too generous a helping of Firewhiskey into his punch the night before, but after a long lie-in and a cooked breakfast that was usually enough to throw off anything Sirius could throw at him, James came to the conclusion that, physically, he was fine. The feeling of something not quite sitting right was coming – and he grimaced even as he thought it – from _him_.

He didn't voice this to his friends, of course – Sirius would have killed himself laughing – but he took himself off for most of the day alone. He told himself it was to test the new broom his parents had sent him for his birthday. Although he wouldn't deny taking some delight in the easy way it twisted and turned at the lightest touch, he wasn't quite as pleased as he should have been, as he would ordinarily be. Nor, in spite of the fact he spent some three hours or so flying, did he feel any better at the end of it, the way he always did after flying. Instead, he left the Quidditch pitch with a heavier weight on his shoulders than ever, a grim feeling settled over him that he knew what he had to do.

And so ten o'clock on Sunday evening James found himself sat on the window ledge of the Astronomy Tower, facing in rather than out, so that his legs dangled into the room, as he waited for the wisest person he knew to find him.

Sirius would have said it was a bad idea, James thought as he kicked his heels against the wall, but then Sirius thought anything that didn't involve him was an inherently bad move. It did feel a bit odd, to have given Sirius the slip so he could come here. He'd never done it before.

Just as he was contemplating the idea that perhaps he should just go back to Sirius and forget the whole thing, however, there were footsteps on the stairs and, suddenly, a silhouette appeared at the top of the stairs. He did not immediately see James as he walked over to examine the cupboard, but James cleared his throat and the figure whipped around, his wand almost blinding James before James could open his mouth to speak.

"_Merlin_, Prongs," said Remus, the wand lighting up his pale face, "don't ever do that to me again."

"Bit jumpy for a snooping Prefect, aren't you?" James shielded his eyes against Remus's wand. Remus rolled his eyes and lowered it.

"There's never anyone here," he said. "And if there were, they wouldn't usually clear their throats."

"No need to be jumpy, then, is there?" James asked. Remus merely raised one eyebrow, and James's grin dropped. They both knew that this was odd, James being here alone. It wasn't as though he hadn't waylaid Remus on his Prefect duties before, but he was never by himself, and certainly never lying in wait like this.

"To what do I owe this pleasure, Prongs?" Remus asked eventually.

"_To what do you owe this pleasure?"_ James mimicked in an overly proper voice. Remus fixed him with a hard stare. James winced and kicked his heels against the wall again.

"It's Lily," he said. It struck him that if he'd been talking to Sirius – not that he _would've _spoken to Sirius, not about this – he would have called her Evans.

Remus's expression turned from exasperated to amused in seconds. "What about her?"

"I…er…" Merlin, why was it this hard to _say? _He was afraid of looking like an idiot – that was it. It just wasn't _cool _to go about worrying about what was right and proper and all that rubbish. "It's nothing," he muttered. "I should probably go before you dock points – "

"You're worried she likes you for the wrong reasons," Remus interrupted, and it was so completely bang on the mark that James had to stare.

"How do you _do _that?" he asked finally.

Remus's lips twitched, as if at some internal joke to which James was not privy. James waited a moment, but the urge was too great – the words came tumbling out before he had time to second-guess them again.

"It's obviously great she seems to like me, but I'm on my best sodding behaviour – and it's not even _for _her; it's for you, and to wind Snape up; and that all seems…wrong somehow? Like we're...I dunno, using her or something." His words had started quickly and coherently, but he trailed off uncertainly at the end as he voiced his worst fear: that if he ever persuaded Lily Evans to go out with him, he didn't want it to be because he had ulterior motives. The uncertainty, deep in the pit of his stomach, only grew as Remus studied him silently. Perhaps he should have listened to the Sirius-voice in his head, he thought: Remus was not the right person to come to; Remus had been against this plan from the start…

"You really like her, don't you?" asked Remus at last.

Defensiveness rose in James – he was rapidly turning into the biggest loser in the school. "Don't be daft," he said. "She's just a bird." But he found himself fervently hoping that he had not already kept Remus so long that Lily came to find him – that she had not overheard him.

Remus was studying him again, his pale green eyes glinting in the dim light. This had definitely been a stupid idea. James slid off the windowsill and jumped down onto the ground.

"Well, thanks for the chat, Moony," he said briskly, as if they'd been discussing the Quidditch League. He messed up his hair with one hand – just in _case _he ran into Lily. "I'll see you back in the Common Room."

He had taken two long strides towards the stone steps when Remus spoke again.

"Put it another way, Prongs," said his friend. "Maybe it's not Lily you're using."

"Snivellus, you mean?" James whipped around, but the suggestion died on his lips, because the look on Remus's face told him exactly whom Remus thought he was using, and it wasn't Snape. James stared at him, open-mouthed. "Moony – you _can't _think – I wouldn't – " The way Remus did not look away somehow made it worse. "We're just trying to get Snape off your back," he said.

But doubt was gnawing at him – it had been Sirius's suggestion, but had he only agreed to this plan because it meant he would get Lily? _Bloody hell. _He had spent the whole day questioning if he was using Lily as some sort of pawn when he should have been wondering if it was wrong to go against what Remus wanted when it was _Remus's _secret. It was the worst kind of plan, James realised in a rush – the sort of plan in which no one was happy and everyone had the potential to get hurt.

"We'll give up if you want," he said finally, though it pained him to say it, to think that Lily might not like him anymore. "Think of something else – "

"No, it's all right." Remus sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm sorry. You're just trying to help. This whole thing is just sort of…stressful, you know?"

"I know," said James, thoroughly relieved that Remus seemed back to his normal self, though he still felt on edge himself. "But it'll be all right. We'll get Snivellus kicked out and you'll be safe."

Something flickered in Remus's pale eyes – discomfort? Guilt? – but James couldn't read it.

"Moony," he said, "we _can _think of something else. This isn't the greatest plan ever anyway – "

"It's fine, Prongs," Remus interrupted. "Like you said, it'll be all right."

"Yeah," said James, unconvinced. "I'll…er, see you in the dorm later, then, shall I?"

"Sure," Remus responded, easily enough, James thought as he descended the stone steps from the Astronomy Tower.

It was only when he was halfway back to Gryffindor Tower that he realised that talking to Remus hadn't comforted him one bit. If anything, he felt _worse._

* * *

Half an hour was a long time to be checking the Astronomy Tower.

Lily didn't know for sure it had been half an hour since she and Remus had separated in the usual way, of course, because her Muggle watch didn't work at Hogwarts. She did know, however, that she had checked the entirety of the fourth floor three times and her fellow Prefect had yet to return to meet her before they proceeded down to the dungeons together. It was a routine they'd fallen into sometime back in November, when they'd realised they could save a lot of time if they did parts of the castle alone. It was bending the rules, of course – two stern faces were considered much more effective than one when faced with late-night delinquents – but they'd quickly worked out which the quietest places were and those were the ones they tackled single-handedly, as quickly as they could.

Which meant that Lily was somewhat bemused as to why Remus was taking so long: it had been ages since they'd caught anyone in the Astronomy Tower, and even then it had been two snivelling third years lacking any greater imagination, who didn't need telling twice to get back to their dormitories. He hadn't been held up by troublemakers, surely.

She waited at the top of the staircase, their usual meeting point, her elbows resting on the bannister as she drummed her fingernails on it, thinking about the long Charms essay awaiting her back in Gryffindor Tower. Where _was _he? Should she go and find him? Her nose wrinkled at the thought of the number of stairs she would have to climb before going all the way back down to the dungeons. The idea was not appealing.

Still, she thought, what if he's in trouble?

It crossed her mind that this was, perhaps, the central reason for why they were supposed to patrol in pairs.

Lily's eyes drifted up the next staircase. Maybe she had missed him somewhere along her second or third check of the fourth floor. Maybe he'd gone down to the dungeons without her.

Well, if her Charms essay was ever going to get done that evening, she ought to head down to the dungeons anyway. She might, after all, miss Remus if she went up to the Astronomy Tower. If he was still up there, he'd work out she'd gone down without him and she could meet him there. It was their very last place to check, so if Remus didn't appear, she'd check the Astronomy Tower on her way up to the dorms.

_Remus wouldn't like this_, a small voice said in the back of Lily's mind as she straightened up. They had never, _ever _caught anyone in the dungeons (possibly because it was the least romantic place in the whole castle), but Remus had always insisted they do it together – in no small part, Lily suspected, because the Slytherin Common Room was in the dungeons. Still, Lily thought indignantly, she could handle herself just fine, thank you very much. She didn't need someone protecting her. Besides, the chances of running into anyone were fairly remote.

Pushing the doubts from her mind, Lily started to descend the staircase.

She regretted her decision as soon as she stepped off the last stone step and into the dank atmosphere of the Potions corridor. Lit torches flickered on the wall, but there was no natural light from the stars here: the shadows loomed large and dark everywhere. She had never been down here at night by herself, she realised – even on the occasions she attended late evening parties in Slughorn's quarters, Alice and Dorcas were always with her.

"Remus?" she called softly, suddenly unwilling to draw attention to herself but keen to find her friend.

Silence. Involuntarily, Lily shivered. It would be easy to go up, she knew. She could wait for Remus in the Entrance Hall – he had to pass through there to get to the dungeons. _But he might already be here. He might not have heard me. _Besides which, there was a stubborn part of Lily that refused to back down.

_Honestly, _she scolded herself. _What are you afraid of?_ Everything she might have once been afraid of – ghosts, poltergeists, monsters in wardrobes – it was all _real _and she knew she could handle it. _So are you a Gryffindor or what?_

She pulled out her wand and lit it. The light was bright, but not bright enough to see all the way down the corridor. Her heart was hammering painfully against her ribs, but gritting her teeth with newfound steel, Lily stepped forward, wand out ahead of her.

The truth was she had been afraid of the dark as a child. It was, in fact, how she had discovered she could do magic: her parents, keen to keep their electricity bill cheap and no doubt tired of Petunia's incessant whining that she couldn't sleep with the light on, had insisted one night when Lily was six that when it was time for bed, the light had to be switched off. Lily had cried and cried until she had seen a burning red behind her eyelids and had seen a white ball of light hovering above her bed. Perhaps she ought to have been afraid, but instinctively she had known that the light meant her no harm.

"Petunia, _look!"_ she had squealed.

From the next bed, Petunia's sulky voice had emerged out of the darkness.

"Go to _sleep_, Lily."

"But, Tuney, look at the light!"

"Are you daft?" Petunia had asked. "Mum and Dad said _no _lights. That's why it's dark tonight." Suddenly her voice took on a suspicious edge. "Why aren't you crying anymore?"

"Because there's a light," said Lily, bewildered. "Can't you see it?"

"See _what? _It's pitch back, you idiot." The sound came of Petunia rolling over. "I _knew _you were pretending this whole time."

"Pretending what?" Lily asked, but the stubborn silence told her that her sister was determined to go to sleep. Frowning, she looked up at the ball of light. Could Petunia _really _not see it?

The answer had to be yes, she knew, because even if Lily had opened the curtain a crack to let in the light from the street lamps, Petunia would have been downstairs whining to their parents.

She had thought at the time it must be some sort of guardian angel only she could see. Now, of course, she knew better. She found herself wishing, suddenly, that coming to Hogwarts had not meant that she lost most of her involuntary magic. She wouldn't have a clue, now, how to cast that sort of spell, or even if it actually existed.

_Practise_, Severus had told her. _You have to practise to learn how to control your magic. _And he had shown her how, and now she could still spin a daisy chain without touching it. But as she'd never actually confessed her fear of the dark to Severus (how mortifying, at ten, to want to sleep with the light on!) and coming to Hogwarts had largely expelled that fear anyway, she could no longer create her ball of light as she once had.

_That's what Lumos is for, _Lily told herself sternly. _Grown-ups don't need a ball of light. _

Still, the unsettled feeling in her stomach kept her moving – she wanted to get out of the dungeons quickly The Potions classroom was empty, save for twenty cauldrons fermenting in a corner. A cupboard Lily forced herself to open revealed nothing but Filch's brooms and mops. Slughorn's office was dark, the door closed – perhaps he was in his private quarters at the back. His was the last room down in the dungeons; heart filled with relief, Lily turned to leave.

It was then she heard voices.

Quiet, muffled voices, admittedly, so that nothing distinct could be heard, but it still made Lily whip around, wand outstretched, pulse racing wildly as she squinted ahead of her. But there was nothing. Of course there wasn't – she'd just looked, hadn't she? – but as she moved her wand ahead, she saw there was another bend in the corner. Dimly, she remembered it, but she and Remus never bothered to check there because there was just a blank wall. But around a corner, out of sight, was the perfect place to avoid getting caught, thought Lily, and clearly someone had realised it. Crossing her fingers it wasn't seventh year Slytherins, she crept forwards and turned the corner.

There was no one there.

Or, rather, she couldn't see anyone: there was only a short space between the corner and the blank stone wall she remembered and it was empty now but for her and an abandoned pile of cauldrons. But the voices were louder now – still muffled; she couldn't hear them properly – but definitely _there_.

"_Homenum Revelio_," Lily whispered, raising her wand.

Nothing. She was alone in that small space. Which meant….

Slowly, she took several steps forwards, towards the wall, before lowering her wand to her side and pressing her ear against the cool stone.

"There's a perfect justification for it, can't see why everyone doesn't know about it – "

"Well, _we _know Mudbloods and Muggles taint a bloodline, make it less powerful – "

Lily's heart dropped to her stomach. The voices sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place them: she could make a reasonable guess as to the _sort _of people they were, though. She grimaced, still shocked and bemused after years of Hogwarts that some people could think like this.

"But there's a really clever Mudblood in my class!"

This voice sounded much younger: Lily would have placed the first two in sixth or seventh year, but this voice was not yet broken – perhaps only a second or third year.

"Pretences!" said another deep voice. "Mudbloods have been pulling the cloak over our eyes for years! Haven't you heard the story of the Monied Mudblood and the Pauper Pureblood? It starts with a pureblood – one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight – who had fallen on hard times – "

"That's just a fairytale for kids," said a scornful voice.

"Look here, my great-grandfather wrote that and if you're calling him a liar – "

"Cantankerous Nott was stark raving mad by the end – "

"How dare you – "

"That's enough! A hard voice, which had not yet spoken – much colder than the voice of Rowan Nott, who Lily realised must have been speaking – broke in, and the murmuring ceased somewhat, but not entirely. "We are not here to discuss the merits of bedtime stories. We're here to get on with the discussion. The title of this evening's meeting is 'Sterilising Muggles: Methods and Concealment'."

Lily's blood turned icy: she suddenly felt numb. She had never heard of such a thing – sterilising Muggles against their will, eliminating Muggle children, Muggle-born witches and wizards... How could people be discussing it here, at Hogwarts? Had she really been so naïve to assume that they were safe at Hogwarts – that all the really nasty stuff happened outside the castle walls? But even in her worst nightmares she had not thought something so hideously awful would be contemplated…

Who _were _these people? Nott, obviously, but who else – who else would involve themselves in this? And _where _were they? They were not in the Slytherin Common Room, which was far away from here. No, it had to be some sort of hidden room, some sort of meeting place for these sick individuals.

She had missed the next few sentences. Shaking slightly, she bent her ear to the wall again.

"-the author of the book in our collection on this subject suggests the Barren Curse – developed by the distinguished Sirius Black I – equally effective on Muggle and Mudblood women, though the main drawback is the precision required. The author recommends the woman be restrained in an accessible – "

No. She couldn't listen. Letting out a strangled cry of disgust, she tore her ear from the wall, staring at it in horror. She had to tell someone – Professor McGonagall; _anyone_…Her legs felt weak as she backed away from the wall, her mind spinning. But suddenly her foot caught something underneath her, she was falling, and the pile of cauldrons she had stumbled into collapsed with several loud crashes. Lily scrambled up, grappling for her wand, but it was too late: she could hear footsteps and voices telling someone to investigate…

She had just made it to her feet when she heard three taps and, suddenly, as she stood rooted to the spot, she saw one stone near the top edge inch out towards her, before the whole wall started to crack down the middle, edging apart, just wide enough to reveal and very familiar looking figure with lank hair and a thin stature.

Lily could only gape, but the person wasted no time; he started forwards and grabbed her roughly by the upper arm, before pulling her around the corner. He threw up a _Muffliato _charm before whirling around to face her.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

His voice started Lily out of her reverie. "What am _I _doing here?" she said furiously. "What are _you _doing here, Severus Snape? Those people are _sick, _and if you – "

"Snape, what is it?" someone called – Lily thought she recognised Avery's voice.

"Shut it, you fool!" Severus whisper-shouted back. "You'll get us all into trouble! It's just Filch's cat with her damned kittens again!"

"Well, come back, then!"

"I'm moving them so Filch doesn't come snooping," Severus returned. Her whipped back to Lily. "You've got to go; they'll kill you – "

"I'm not going anywhere," said Lily icily, crossing her arms, "until you tell me what's going on!"

His expression was torn, anguished.

"_Severus_," Lily hissed.

"There's no time," he said, pushing her a little. "Tomorrow."

"_Tonight_," Lily insisted. "Tonight, or I'm going straight to Professor McGonagall. I should do that _anyway – "_

A flicker of something – fear? – crossed Severus's face.

"Transfiguration classroom at midnight," he said. "Now _go."_

Reluctant to leave, but recognising the concession for what it was worth, Lily nodded. She backed away. Severus gave her a last piercing look, before disappearing around the corner, leaving Lily with her spinning thoughts and churning stomach.

* * *

She'd thought he might not show, but he was there before she was, still dressed in his school uniform as Lily slipped into the classroom in her nightgown. She felt cold and hideously underdressed for wandering around the school, but she had not had much choice – failure to go to bed would have made her friends ask questions, and she could hardly tell them the truth.

"You're late." His voice was low as she shut the door softly behind her.

She turned to face him, pulling at her dressing gown cord to make it tighter. "I don't think _you're _the one to be lecturing _me_ right now," she said coolly. She waited for him to speak, but he seemed intent on studying the desk in front of him. Well, she thought,she wasn't about to make this easy for him. She folded her arms and waited.

"It's not a big deal," he said finally.

Whatever Lily had expected, it was not this. "Not a big deal?" she burst out in a furious whisper. "Sev, this is serious! How _could _you? What is it – some sort of anti-Muggleborn cult you've all created?"

"Don't be stupid," he said, his dark eyes rising to meet hers. "It's nothing like that. We just meet to discuss things – "

"Like sterilising Muggles and Muggleborns?" Lily's voice was rising. "People like me, Sev?" She felt physically sick, but she was rooted to the spot in her disbelief. She was no stranger to the fact that all of Severus's friends were into the Dark Arts, but she'd been foolish enough to think that Sev was keeping out of it – that he wasn't the same.

Severus looked pained. "You know it's not like that," he said. "I would never – you're too – " His gaze snapped away abruptly to the wall. When he looked at her again, his expression was blank, unreadable. "The seventh years started it," he said. "It's been going for years – meeting occasionally to discuss Dark Arts. You're just expected to join. My friends – "

"Oh yes, I suppose Avery and Mulciber are in it," said Lily scornfully.

"_All _my year are in it," said Severus. "How do you think it would look if I wasn't?"

"If you had any decency, you'd go straight to Dumbledore and get it stopped," said Lily.

"I'm sure that would go down splendidly with the people I have to share a dorm with for the next two and a half years." Severus's voice dripped with sarcasm.

"Then _I'll _go to Dumbledore," said Lily hotly. Her vision was blurred with tears. What had she expected? That Severus had some way of explaining this? It was too awful to be explained – she should have known that. She turned to go, wiping her face angrily with the back of her hand.

"I'll be expelled."

Lily's hand hovered over the doorknob, and she turned slowly to face her childhood friend. His face was white; she knew what it had cost him to say it, to admit this weakness. She had never seen it as a weakness, but Severus certainly had, and he hated even alluding to the fact that his home life was less than ideal. But Lily well knew expulsion for Severus would be punishment far beyond what he deserved – while, she was sure, the likes of Avery and Nott would get off because of family influences. Could she do that to him?

"I'll leave your name out of it," she said.

"They'll tell," said Severus, and his tone was wretched. "And they'll know it was you if I'm not landed in it too."

"I don't care about _that."_

"I do," said Severus, so quietly that Lily wasn't sure she'd heard correctly. She stared at him, understanding that he was asking her to keep this to herself – not to tell _anybody_.

"How can you stand to listen to it?" she asked softly. "Sev, they were talking about people like me and my parents like we're…like I'm…" A lump had formed in her throat, preventing her from voicing her fears: that there was a substantially larger proportion of people than she had realised who thought her worthless, who wanted to hurt her…that those people might include _Severus_…

"I don't like it any more than you do," he said quickly. "You know I think you're the best witch in our year – probably in the whole school. But…but it's better like this, isn't it? Knowing what people out there are really like, knowing what we're up against? That's the only reason I sit there and listen to that stuff, Lily."

She wanted to believe him. He was gazing at her earnestly and she had to look away.

"But you are interested, Sev," she said. "You can't deny that. I heard them talking about a collection of books – you've read them, haven't you?"

Surprise flickered across Severus's face – perhaps at how well she knew him. "Yes," he said, his tone cautious. "All the stuff we talk about comes from the books they keep in that room. I feel obliged to educate myself."

"How could you? They deserve to be burnt!"

"No book deserves to be burnt," said Severus, jutting out his chin. "I told you – I'm only interested to know what's out there. Knowledge is power, after all."

Evidently he meant this as a rather grandiose statement, but it made Lily shiver.

"That's probably the sort of thing You-Know-Who goes about saying."

"That's the sort of thing Slytherins go about saying," Severus corrected. Lily was silent. He took a hesitant step forward. "So…you won't tell?"

"It's sick," said Lily stoutly, folding her arms. "Frankly, Sev, whatever your motives, you all deserve to be expelled."

"Says _you_," Severus retorted. "_I _say everything deserves discussion, whether you agree with it or not." His eyes suddenly seemed blacker, his expression cold. "I thought you were open-minded. Not like your sister."

It was a low blow and he knew it: Lily could see the apology in his eyes before he opened his mouth again. She waved it off.

"I am," she said. "But I'm worried that for the rest of them it _isn't_, you know, academic." As the words left her mouth, she realised she had just inadvertently suggested that what Severus was doing was perfectly acceptable. Was it? Remembering the discussion she had overheard still made her shiver. But one of the things she had always admired about Severus was his intellectual curiosity – his interest in possessing knowledge for the sake of knowledge. And he was right: she certainly could not argue with the view that it was worth knowing what was out there, rather than staying in ignorance.

"Most of the others are too stupid to comprehend most of what goes on." Severus's tone was dismissive, but he must have been able to see that Lily was still tense because he added, "Seriously. It's not like they could do this stuff under Dumbledore's nose, is it?"

"I guess not," said Lily slowly, reluctant to make any further concessions, any agreement. The thought that people like Nott knew how to hurt her so badly made her insides twist horribly, even if they couldn't use it at school. "I still don't know if I can keep this quiet, Sev."

Something in Severus's face closed up; he turned away slightly. She hated it, knowing that he didn't trust many people in his life and that she was compromising his trust in her.

"As you will." His tone was bitter. "I thought you were my friend."

"I am, Sev; I just don't like you mixed up in this stuff."

"I'm _not _mixed up in it. It's just something the Slytherins do. Like the Gryffindors sit around eating toasted marshmallows and playing Gobstones." The sneer was just barely detectable, and Lily almost blushed, because it was typical of Friday nights in the Gryffindor Common Room. "You wouldn't understand," he said bitterly.

He had been saying that more and more lately; and perhaps it was true. She certainly couldn't imagine her House-mates sitting around discussing Muggle sterilisation techniques with interest rather than outrage. She wrung her hands.

"If I don't say anything – " He looked up, hopefully, and she made sure to hold his gaze. "You've got to promise me it's not going any further."

"We're not exactly planning to broadcast it," said Severus dryly.

"That's not what I mean. I don't want you going around using this stuff on Muggle Borns, Sev."

"I won't. I promise."

It was said a little too quickly; a little too easily. Lily surveyed her friend, trying to work out the loophole.

"But the others…" She trailed off hesitantly.

"They won't hurt you," said Severus. "I promise. I won't let them lay a finger on you."

It was not herself she was concerned about, but Severus's gaze was so intense she felt embarrassed; it had suddenly turned awkward; they had strayed into something she hadn't banked on. She lowered her eyes, flustered, trying to find a way to handle this safely and drawing a blank.

But she already knew one thing. She couldn't turn him in. Not to be expelled. And so long as they didn't use this stuff… She was not binding herself in any way; if they used it, she could tell Dumbledore what she knew…

"All right, Sev," she said at last. "I won't tell."

Severus's face lit up; she thought for a moment he might actually hug her. But even Severus's obvious delight couldn't help her shake the feeling that she was doing something very, very wrong.

"I need to go to bed," she muttered, fumbling for the doorknob. Her eyes were burning again; she could hardly see. She felt the handle underneath her fingers and fled before she could say another word, before she broke down into tears.

Severus watched her go, chewing his lip nervously, his heart hammering. He knew Lily was good for her word – if she said she wouldn't tell, she wouldn't, but with the threat of expulsion gone he was suddenly left to confront the horror he had felt when he had discovered Lily in the dungeons.

Thank Merlin it had been he who had checked on the noises outside and not someone else! His House-mates had enough quibbles with Lily Evans to justify them teaching her a good lesson. Severus wasn't sure Lily had comprehended how much danger she had been in – how much danger she _would _be in, if she did tell after all. He, Severus, would be expelled, but many of them wouldn't, and they'd see to it that they got revenge on the individual that had told on them in the first place. Whatever he had told her, some of the Slytherins were definitely stupid enough to use the curses they had learned during their meetings. Severus had known well enough that sort of threat wouldn't go far with Lily – she could be the most foolhardy of Gryffindors at times. Luckily, Lily's kindness was as predictable as her bravery, and he had half-suspected, half-hoped that he could appeal to her successfully, even if he _had _had to betray his weakness to her.

He thought of his parents' dilapidated house in Cokeworth, with its grimy windows and roof badly in need of repair, and grimaced.

None of this, of course, solved this little problem with Potter. He may have avoided drawing further attention to Lily, but the Slytherins were already keenly aware of her recent affinity with the Gryffindor Chaser. He had promised himself he was going to talk to her today, but she'd been surrounded by her friends in the library all day, and she'd rushed off just now before he could even bring up the subject of Potter.

_Tomorrow_, he thought resolutely. It had to be tomorrow; he could not keep putting it off like this. If he was not careful he would run out of time and she would be _dating Potter._

The thought made him want to throw up.

* * *

**A/N: As always, I would love to hear what you thought. The next chapter may take slightly longer but is well on its way (and reviews go a long way towards speeding me up!).**


End file.
